THE LIFE STORY OF AN OTTER
[Illustration]
OTTER CUBS.
_Reproduced by kind permission of Her Grace the Duchess of Bedford._
Frontispiece.
THE LIFE STORY OF
AN OTTER
BY J. C. TREGARTHEN
AUTHOR OF ‘WILD LIFE AT THE LAND’S END’ AND
‘THE LIFE STORY OF A FOX’
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1909
TO
MY WIFE
PREFACE
The otter has long seemed to me worthy of serious attention, if only for
the successful struggle it has waged against those exterminating
agencies under which the badger, the wildcat, the polecat and the marten
have all but succumbed.
Its survival throughout Great Britain is due, partly to its endurance
and resources when hunted, partly to qualities and habits which
differentiate it from the other creatures of the wild. Its scent, for
instance, unlike that of fox or badger, to which every tike and lurcher
will stoop, is noticed by few dogs save hounds that have been trained to
own it; and the outlawed beast thus gains a certain immunity from
destruction.
Then the otter is a great wanderer, who not only traverses long
stretches of coast and follows streams and rivers to their source, but
crosses hills and even mountains to reach its fishing-grounds. It has
been known to travel fifteen miles in a night, and not infrequently the
holts where it lies up during the day are ten or twelve miles apart.
On the way to its quarters it will linger to fish or hunt, and the
remains of eel, salmon, pike, rabbit, moorhen or wild-duck mark the
scene of the midnight feast. But no matter how much it may leave uneaten
the otter never returns to a kill, and so escapes the traps with which
gamekeeper or water-bailiff is sure to ring the ground about it. Unlike
its congener the polecat, the otter does not hoard food; unless the
caches of frogs occasionally found in marshes are its work, and not that
of the heron as is generally supposed.
However that may be it is certain that it does not hibernate, but is
abroad night after night the whole year round. Indeed, as often as not,
the female produces her young in the depth of winter, and indefatigable
forager though she is, must often be sore pressed to provide food for
her litter. At times the conditions are too severe, and a tragedy
ensues. At Mullyon, in Mount’s Bay, one bitterly cold December, when the
Poldhu stream was frozen and the sea too rough and discoloured for the
otter to fish, the poor creature in her extremity crept into a bungalow
in the course of erection, and was there found curled up dead.
It seems to me a matter for regret that such an interesting beast is not
better known; and the present narrative is an attempt to portray it
amidst the wild surroundings that are so congenial to its shy nature.
The critical reader will perhaps wonder at the daring that essays to
interpret the workings of the most subtle of animal brains, but I submit
that the inferences are, for the most part, of a very safe character;
and modest as they are, they would not have been adventured on, had it
not been for my long familiarity with the ways and habits of a creature
that is by general consent the most mysterious and inscrutable of our
fauna, for the incidents described embody the gleanings of a lifetime of
observation and inquiry. It will be noted that I agree with those who
hold that in pursuit of fish the otter is guided wholly by sight, though
it may well be that the extraordinary powers of scent which enable the
creature to detect the presence of fish in a stream or pond by sniffing
the surface are called into play during immersion.
The story of the otter is, I believe, now told at any length for the
first time; and my hope is to bring about a wider and deeper interest in
the animal, and be the means of removing some of the prejudice which
unjustly attaches to it.
I take this opportunity of thanking the Duchess of Bedford and Mr. J. G.
Millais for their courtesy in allowing me the use of most valuable
illustrations.
TREGONEBRIS,
SANCREED,
WEST CORNWALL.
_March 10, 1909._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. IN THE NURSERY 1
II. EARLY TRAINING 10
III. THE FIRST TREK 21
IV. AT THE CREEK 39
V. SEA AND MARSH 53
VI. THE FAMILY BROKEN UP 69
VII. THE OTTER AT THE TARN 83
VIII. THE OTTER AND HIS MATE 104
IX. FROST AND FAMINE 120
X. TRACKED 131
XI. BACK IN THE OLD HAUNTS 145
XII. THE LONG TRAIL 166
INDEX 187
Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
OTTER CUBS _frontispiece_
HURRYING HOME _to face page_ 8
THE RIVER BELOW THE MILL " 18
THE WILD COAST-LINE " 62
HOUNDS SWIMMING AN OTTER " 78
THE OTTER " 83
ON HIS WAY UP THE CREEK " 107
HIS LAST SALMON " 173
THE LIFE STORY OF AN OTTER
CHAPTER I
IN THE NURSERY
It was in a morass in a hollow of the foothills that he was littered.
His mother chose this inaccessible spot for the security it promised to
her helpless young. In the heart of the quagmire they would be safe, she
thought, from floods and—what was still more important to her—from
man. She could not find a hover quite to her liking, but in lack of a
better, she chose a ledge where, in an angle of the stream that drained
the bog, the bank furnished a screen from the biting wind which blew up
the valley and soughed over the uplands. After enlarging the ledge into
a shelf, she shaped the excavation for the nest, which she fashioned out
of dead rushes and withered grasses, and which she lined with the
softest products that Nature offered her—tattered reed-plumes and
seed-down of the bulrush. Night after night she ransacked the waste in
quest of these rare spoils, lest the rude structure should be wanting in
cosiness for the cubs which, even before it was quite finished, were
deposited in it.
There were only two to share her affection—the intense affection of the
hunted creature for its offspring. The dread of being reft of them
haunted her from their birth, but happily the mites themselves knew no
fear, knew nothing but the warm, furry mother who fondled and suckled
them. Whelps and dam were as one, for she seldom left them save to get
food; and this she sought and devoured with feverish energy, that she
might the sooner return to them. She foraged sometimes, it is true, in
the morass itself; but usually she had to go to the river at the foot of
the long, undulating slope, and though the inconvenience of having the
fishing-ground so far away was often borne in upon her, she put up with
it, and never for a moment thought of moving the cubs from the safe
keeping of the bog.
Under the grey skies, the rain and the sleet of January, few more
cheerless scenes could be found than the moorland and the morass within
it; yet there in the hollowed bank the otter and the wee, blind,
downy-coated creatures she had entrusted to the chill mercies of
midwinter, lay nestled in the snuggest of hovers. And the grim season
would relent at times, breaking into bright days when the sun bestowed
its warmth on the cold, sodden earth. Then the morass and all the hills
about it were bathed in the glow, and the swollen stream, visible over
the edge of the nest, glistened like silver. Quick to accept Nature’s
bounty for the winterlings, the otter, when satisfied that no eye
observed her, took them between her lips, carried them from the gloomy
hover, and laid them on a tussock which screened her where she crouched,
ready to protect them. There the cubs stretched themselves and basked
with quiet content in the health-giving rays. But when the sun passed
behind the clouds, they would complain at the withdrawal of the warmth,
and raise their blinking eyes to the sky as if protesting to a second
mother against such unfeeling treatment.
For before this they had opened their eyes—black, restless eyes, like
those which kept constant watch and ward over their safety. The otter,
of course, managed to get a little sleep, but it was of the lightest. At
the startled note of a bird, or even the sudden rustling of the reeds
when a gust shook them, her head would pop up from the grasses
concealing her; and she generally made a keen inspection of the sky-line
and of the ground within her ken before she lay down again and snatched
another forty winks. But as morning after morning passed without
intrusion of aught to warrant her suspicions, her vigilance gradually
relaxed; and one noon, when she was very weary from the night’s
foraging, she curled up and fell sound asleep at her post.
Whilst she slept, a buzzard, mewing as he quartered the ground beneath,
espied the cubs, and thinking they were at his mercy, stooped to seize
the easy prey. He was about to lay hold of the smaller cub when the
otter, awakened by the strange cry, rose from her hiding-place and
confronted him. At sight of her the bird, taken aback, thought only of
escape, but the mother was bent on avenging the attempted wrong. Quick
as lightning she sprang at him, and, had not the hummock given way
beneath her, she must have gripped him despite the frantic down-strokes
of the big wings which lifted him well beyond her second leap. Her
fierce eyes and bristling hair made her terrible to behold as she stood
watching the marauder’s retreat, and hissing the while like a fury.
Then, as if fearful that the fray had attracted attention, she took her
eyes off the bird and scrutinized the approaches to the morass before
removing the cubs to the nest, where she stilled their complaints by
fondling them until they fell asleep and forgot their sunny couch on the
grass. The incident troubled the otter so greatly that, resisting all
their importunities, she never again exposed them to the risk of
capture.
To break the monotony of the hover, the cubs, as their limbs grew
stronger, would, in the intervals of sleep, clamber to the wide parapet
of the nest and take note of the things that moved within their narrow
field: of trembling grasses, of the bramble spray that moved to and fro
in the current, of the reeds that nodded in the wind, and, above all, of
the creatures that visited the stream to feed or quench their thirst.
They watched every step taken by the snipe, every thrust of his long
bill; they regarded with wonder the gay kingfisher that perched on their
ledge and fished in their pool; they were moved to the keenest curiosity
by the old dog-fox, who stole from the reeds to drink and set their
young nostrils working with his strong scent. When sure of their
footing, with pads outstretched and every webbed toe expanded they
advanced to the very edge of the nest, pushed their dusky grey heads
through the grassy curtain, and looked down at the eddy gurgling below,
contemplating the element in which their lives would be spent and whose
every change they were to know.
They resembled kittens more than any other young creatures, the
difference lying in their tiny ears and shy, wild eyes. But, suggestive
of fear as was their look, they were not as yet conscious of the danger
besetting them, even when able to scramble up the bank and sprawl about
the bog. Thither the otter led them in all weathers, and it was for this
duty that she hurried back to them the instant she had done foraging.
Now and again the scarcity of prey or the difficulty of securing it
would detain her far into the night and sorely tax the patience of the
cubs, eager for her return. In the intervals of listening they would
pace round the now dishevelled nest, increasing their speed as the hours
passed without sign of her. At length the shrill whistle, heard even
above the storm or downpour, would reach them, and set them dancing with
delight. Two furry heads and little red tongues greeted the panting
mother as soon as her feet rested on the ledge, and the next instant the
capering creatures followed her as she led to the gambolling-ground
beyond the great reed-bed. There they frolicked to their heart’s content
through the hours of darkness, and even after sun-up when thick fog
shrouded the morass. On reaching the nest the otter suckled them to
sleep, and, lying between them and the mouth of the holt, as was her
invariable custom, shielded them from cold and danger.
These were happy days for the dam, but owing to the wilfulness of the
male cub they did not last long. He had taken it into his head that he
was big enough to go out alone, and one night out he ventured. He was
more than half-way to the reed-bed when his mother found him. This first
demonstration of independence caused her little concern, but she was
almost beside herself with anxiety when, two days later, he made an
attempt to sally out in broad daylight, and all but succeeded in getting
away. He was nearly over the bank when she pulled him back by the tail
and gave him a sharp nip by way of punishment. The very next day the
incorrigible fellow got even farther away; but she discovered his
absence before he had got beyond the tussocks, fetched him back, and bit
him severely as she laid him down in the nest. Thus disobedience brought
unhappiness into the hover, and the cub, shrinking from the mother he
deemed cruel, shuffled to the inmost corner, where fibrous roots
protruded from the low roof, and there licked his bruises in morose
isolation.
[Illustration: _Photo C. Reid, Wishaw, N.B._ To face p. 8.
HURRYING HOME.]
Aware now of his rashness, the otter dared not leave the nest by day as
she had occasionally done before. One noon, however, impelled by her own
hunger and the cubs’ piteous entreaties for food, she put aside her
apprehensions and stole out, leaving them to their own devices. As
quickly as her pads could carry her, she made her way down the hill
along the rents that fissured the peaty ground, dived across the swollen
pool in the hollow below, dashed over the sward beyond some alders, and
gained the wood and the river unobserved. The river was bank-high and
much discoloured, but after a long quest she came on an eel abroad in
the flood. Landing under some bushes on the far side, she devoured half
the fish, and then, without a moment’s delay, slipped into the river and
floated down with the current. At a rapid pace she rounded bend after
bend, came ashore at a backwater, leapt some felled trees, and regained
the bog by the same hidden ways. To her dismay she found, as she had
feared, the nest deserted and cold. In great distress she set out to
fetch the truants home. She followed their trail to the reed-bed,
through which she dashed like a thing demented, and came upon her two
cubs playing in the open as fearlessly as only tame creatures may play.
On sighting their mother, the runaways, instead of slinking off
guilt-stricken, rushed at the full speed of their ungainly limbs to meet
her, and tried by winning antics to induce her to join in their midday
romp. Gladly as she would have complied, her response was to drag them
into cover, take the smaller cub in her mouth, carry it to the nest, and
return for the ringleader, who squealed with rage until soundly ducked
in the pool below the hover. The dark-pelted creature was a conspicuous
object as she splashed across the exposed spaces; but, as good fortune
would have it, both she and the cubs escaped the observation of the
keeper who was occasionally to be seen on the hills overlooking the
morass. Still, the poor outlaw had been taught a sharp lesson, and
resolved never again on any pretext to leave the cubs by day. So greatly
was she perturbed by their escapade that she even longed for the moment
when fear should awaken in them and whisper its monitions.
Meanwhile, she looked forward with impatience to the night when they
would be able to follow her afield and learn the many lessons she was
anxious to teach them; and in order to hasten the time, she devoted
every hour she could spare to sharing their frolics, so that they might
develop rapidly.