Along the Shore after Birds--An Otter in pursuit of a Fish--Tame
Otter at Bridge of Tilt: Employed in Fishing--His hatred of all
sorts of Birds--"The Otter and Fox," a translation from the Gaelic.
November closed with a week of the most delightful weather one
could wish for at this season [December 1870], cold, but crisp and
clear; nor has December thus far shown any tendency to exceptional
"rampaging" either, though come it must, if we are not much mistaken,
and in a style we fear that will cause it to be remembered. Woodcocks,
fieldfares, redwing thrushes, snow buntings, and starlings are at
this moment more plentiful than we ever saw them before; while
Arctic sea-fowl in great numbers crowd our creeks and bays, and
immense flocks of grallatores, curlews, gedwits, purrs, dunlins,
and oyster-catchers, may be seen all along our shores diligently
attending the sea margin as the tide recedes, or with weird and wild
scream urging their eccentric flights from an exhausted sandbank in
indefatigable search of "fresh fields and pastures new." Creeping among
the rocks on the back of Cuilchenna Point, a quiet, sequestered shore,
seldom visited by anybody but ourselves at this season, one evening
last week, watching a pair of web-feet that we finally decided to
be smews, a species of merganser, we were unexpectedly treated to an
exhibition of aquatic feats that we had never before seen equalled,
and that we thought no animal, biped or quadruped, could accomplish in
an element not properly its own. Squatted on the beach behind two huge
boulders, a narrow opening between which enabled us to look seawards,
and to see without being seen, we were watching the elegant smews as
they preened themselves, floating gracefully the while, without the
movement of a web, on the calm surface of the cold, clear sea, when
right before us, and within less than a dozen fathoms of the shore,
a dark object suddenly dashed to the surface with a flop and a splash,
and as suddenly disappeared. We took it to be a seal in pursuit of
some fish, as is his wont; but on its reappearance a minute or so
afterwards, we were delighted to see that it was not a seal, but a
large otter hard at work in chase of some favourite fish for supper;
and small blame to him for that same, for if one might judge from his
exertions in the pursuit, he was dreadfully hungry and thoroughly
in earnest, not yet having dined, perhaps, nor even broken his
fast since the preceding evening, for your otter (Lutra vulgaris)
is for the most part an evening and nocturnal feeder. Nothing could
exceed the elegance and ease with which the otter performed the most
extraordinary and complicated evolutions in pursuit of his prey,
his long, lithe body, pliant and supple as an eel's, twisting and
twining in every direction as the fish darted hither and thither, or
swept in rapid circles in its efforts to escape. Its tail, we noticed,
seemed to act not merely as a rudder in aid of its owner's incessant
perisaltations, but to be in constant motion like a propeller, as if to
assist the broad and muscular web feet in every act of natation. For
ten minutes or more, perhaps, did the chase continue, the fish, that
seemed to be either a haddock or sea-trout of some three or four
pounds weight, occasionally leaping bodily out of the water in its
efforts to escape from the unfriendly attentions of its stern pursuer,
the said pursuer, like a staunch hound, doubling as the fish doubled,
circling as it circled, and diving as it dived, with a persistency
and perseverance that it was impossible to elude, until at last,
fairly beaten in his own element, the fish was captured in a pool of
shallow water, whither it had darted in its terror and bewilderment,
the otter instantly pouncing upon it and seizing it in his mouth,
as you have seen a terrier deal with a rat. At this moment we rushed
from our concealment with a shout, hoping to frighten the otter and
get hold of the fish, but Monsieur Lutra was too quick for us. With
the fish in his mouth he plunged into the sea, and in a second had
disappeared among some boulders that would probably have afforded him
a secure asylum, even if we had a pack of otter hounds to aid in our
attempt at the dislodgment of a gentleman so cunning.
With the common otter of our inland rivers and lakes we have been more
or less familiar since our school-boy days; but we cannot recollect
having ever seen a marine otter until this occasion. Our naturalists
seem to be very generally agreed that the sea otter and that of
our rivers and fresh-water lakes are one and the same animal,--an
opinion from which we are not at this moment prepared to dissent,
though the animal referred to above seemed to us to be larger in
size, blacker in colour, with more prominent ears, and a bigger,
bushier tail than any specimen, living or dead, that had hitherto
come under our notice. Certain peculiarities, however, of form and
colouring in the individual are frequently attributable to accidental
circumstances. We remember seeing a very fine dog otter many years ago,
that its owner had succeeded in rendering comparatively tame, and of
some use in the capture of fish for its master's table, as well as for
its own sustenance. The animal belonged to the innkeeper at Bridge
of Tilt, in Athole, and was usually kept chained in an empty stall
in the stable. It was very good-natured and docile, and evinced its
satisfaction on being stroked with the hand and patted by a curious
purring, sort of half whine half bark, altogether unlike the utterance
of any other animal with which we are acquainted. We saw it presented
with a dish of milk, which it readily lapped up, using its tongue
by way of spoon, as a dog does under similar circumstances. With
a collar round its neck, to which a long rope was attached, it was
frequently taken to the river, where it never failed to catch fish,
first driving them, after the manner of a collie with a flock of
sheep, into the nearest pool in which there was a considerable depth
of water, when he pounced upon them with the agility of a wild cat,
and seldom failed to secure two or three of the best and biggest fish
in the shoal ere they could manage to escape. We were assured, however,
that the best place to see the otter at work was not the river, but
one of the moorland lochs, in the depths of which he was perfectly
at home. Here he exhibited the most astonishing feats of agility in
pursuit of his prey; his activity and matchless swimming powers being
backed by a pertinacity and cunning that left neither trout nor pike
much chance of escape. Having marked out and selected the fish to be
captured, it was observed that he stuck to it with the staunchness of
a well-trained hound through all its doublings and windings, as if for
the moment the loch contained none but it, until he had fairly run it
down; the capture generally taking place among the reeds that bordered
the margin of the mere, into which the fish always rushed on becoming
sensible that its adversary was not to be eluded in open water. If
left to himself, it was remarked that the otter was somewhat dainty
and fastidious of taste, rarely eating more of a captured fish than
a little at the back of the head and about the pectoral fins, when,
after a short rest, he was ready to start in pursuit of another. If
this be the habit of otters in their wild state--as there is reason to
believe it is--one can fancy how terribly destructive to fish they must
be, killing ten times more than they actually eat, and these, too, the
best and biggest fish they can meet with in their depredations. Even
a single pair of otters, with a family to rear, must be a terrible
scourge on any river they may select to honour with their attentions
for a season; nor is the marine otter, we may be sure--such as we
saw the other day--less destructive when he takes up his residence in
the vicinity of salmon fishings. Whatever the price of salmon in the
market, depend upon it that the otter's larder is always well supplied.
The semi-domesticated otter above referred to, after leading a not
unuseful life for a year or two under the careful and always kindly
superintendence of its intelligent owner, managed at last somehow to
break its chain and escape, and was never more seen or heard of. The
only other curious thing about this animal that we can recollect
was his deadly aversion to every feathered creature that came near
him. Whether goose or duck, barn-door fowl or pigeon, he seemed to
detest them all, and would readily, and with every sign of anger,
kill such as he could get hold of, not to eat them, observe, for
that he was never known to do, but just because he disliked them. To
all other animals he could be easily reconciled, and was on good
and even friendly terms with all the dogs, cats, and pigs about the
place, particularly manifesting his love for his stable companions,
the horses, by whining in his strange fashion and straining on his
chain to the utmost, as if he would fain welcome them with a caress,
when after a day's work in the fields they returned to the stable of
an evening. We are not aware that, except milk, which it would readily
lap and seemed to enjoy, this otter was ever known to touch anything in
the shape of food except its natural fish diet. In the old Sgeulachdan,
or fireside tales of the ancient Highlanders, we frequently meet with
the "dun otter" or dobhran donn, as one of the dramatis personæ. He
is generally introduced to us under an amiable character, rescuing
neglected merit from obscurity, relieving distressed damsels, or
succouring the widow and orphans with bountiful supplies of silvery
fish from the tarn amongst the mountains, or the eddying pool beneath
the cascade in the glen. The amiable and friendly otter sometimes
turns out to be an enchanted prince, who, timeously released from
the spell that has doomed him to amphibious habits and quadrupedal
form, assumes his proper shape, and marries the always virtuous and
beautiful, though frequently humble, heroine of the tale. In the
Hebrides to this day the otter is looked upon with some degree of
superstitious reverence, and a bit of otter skin worn by way of charm
is regarded as an antidote against infection in fever and small-pox,
a preservative from death by drowning, and of singular efficacy in
bringing the labours of parturition to a happy issue. A mole on a
person's skin, whatever its place or proportions, is in the Hebrides
never reckoned a deformity. It is regarded rather as a "beauty spot"
than otherwise, and believed to betoken a long life and good luck to
the fortunate possessor. In the West Highlands and Hebrides such a
mark on the skin is called a ball-dobhrain, an otter mark or otter
spot, and is no more accounted a blemish or deformity than was the
mole on the right lip of Dulcinea del Toboso by Don Quixote, though
it looked "like a whisker, and had seven or eight red hairs in it
above a span long!" In some places a piece of otter skin placed on
the head under a woman's coif, and worn inside a man's blue bonnet,
is supposed to relieve the headache and prevent baldness, while
gentle friction along the affected part with the furry side of a
bit of otter skin is esteemed of sovereign efficacy in erysipelas or
"rose." The following is a somewhat free rendering from the Gaelic
of a fable occurring in an old Sgeulachd, with which many of our west
coast readers at least must be acquainted. The moral is obvious.
The Otter and Fox.
The otter had caught in the pool below
A silvery salmon so full of roe,
And clambering bore it over the rocks,
When who should he meet but his cousin the fox.
"Friend," quoth the wily fox, "pray go
And bring me a fish from the pool below--
I've not tasted fish for a year or mo'.
Leave here thy salmon; go, haste thee back,
We'll dine together and have our crack;
Believe me, dear otter, that over one's food
The face of a friend is always good."
The otter tumbled into the stream
Where the floating foam was white as cream;
He sought and searched in each cranny and hole,
But not a fish could he find in the pool.
"Well," quoth the otter, "I'll hasten back
To my cousin the fox, and we'll have our crack
Over the salmon I left above;
One fish will go far that is eaten in love;
'Tis large, and fat, and full of roe,
And, fairly divided, will serve for two."
Clambering over the rocks in haste
The otter returned to join his guest;
But guess his surprise when he reached the spot;
Where the fox had been--the fox was not,
And nought of the salmon that could be seen
But some silvery scales where the salmon had been!
The otter but said, "'Tis my belief
My cousin the fox should be hanged for a thief;
He'll never again make me his tool,
For myself alone I'll haunt the pool."