<h2><SPAN name="THE_OTTER" id="THE_OTTER"></SPAN>THE OTTER.</h2>
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<p class="drop-cap">NATURE, children, as you observe,
gave my family a handsome
coat. Now no bird can have
fine feathers, nor beast a fine fur
but men and women desire them for
adornment, or possibly to keep themselves
warm. So the hunters, finding it
a paying business, shoot and trap us till
places which once knew the Otter
know us no more.</p>
<p>Such gentle animals as we are, too.
No little girl or boy would care to have
a more frolicsome playmate than a
young cub Otter. He will romp with
you, and play with Dog or Cat and sit up
on his hindquarters, and whistle and do
even many quaint tricks to make you
laugh.</p>
<p>To make him happy you must have
a little pond in the yard or a large
tank, though he will run about the
yard or house most of the time with
the Dog. Feed him at first on bread
and milk, then on fish, though you can
train him to do without the latter and
eat the "leavings" from the table.</p>
<p>Such fun as we Otters that live in
the Northern part of the United States
and Canada do have in winter. No
school-boy enjoys coasting down hill
more than we do. Though we live in
the water, you may say, and are known
as the fastest-swimming quadrupeds,
yet, in spite of our short legs, we can
run over land tolerably well, too. So
we trudge along till we come to a high
hill, well covered with snow; up we
scramble to the top, lie down flat on
our smooth jackets, bend our fore feet
backward and, giving ourselves a shove
with our hind legs, down we slide head-foremost.
Such fun as it is! Not till
we get hungry or too tired to jog up
the hill any more do we give it up for
that day.</p>
<p>In summer we enjoy the same sport,
too. How? Oh, all we want is a clay-bank
with a good muddy surface, and
down we go to turn a somersault into
the water of the creek below. "Shooting
the chutes" you little people would
call it, I suppose, though we call it our
"slide."</p>
<p>Our homes are always on the banks
of a stream. We begin to burrow three
or four feet below the surface of the
water, forming a tunnel which leads to
a chamber in the bank high and dry.
That is called our den and we line it
with grass and live very comfortably.</p>
<p>Being a hunted animal our senses are
very acute. When on land we are
always on the alert and, at the approach
of danger, down we go into the water
and hide in our dens. After sunset we
go out to fish. We beat the surface of
the water with our tails and frighten
the scaly fellows so that they seek
refuge under stones or in holes in the
bank. Then we catch our Fish. For
a change we eat Crabs, Frogs, and
sometimes small birds.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</SPAN></span></p>
<table class="sp2 mc w50" title="AMERICAN OTTER." summary="AMERICAN OTTER.">
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<td colspan="3"><span class="ac w100 figcenter">
<SPAN name="i_030.jpg" id="i_030.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%"
src="images/i_030.jpg" width="600" height="449" alt="" /></SPAN></span>
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<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.</td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">AMERICAN OTTER.<br/>
¼ Life-size.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">Copyright by<br/>
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</SPAN></span></p>
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