e morning, saw
a number of animals coming towards him, and stood quietly by the hedge
till they came alongside of him. He then perceived four old otters,
probably dams, and about twenty young ones. He took a stick out of the
hedge and killed one. Directly it began to squeak, all the four old ones
turned back, and stood till the other young ones had escaped through the
hedge, and then went quietly themselves. Several families were thus
journeying together, and probably they had left their former abode from
not finding a sufficiency of food."

The beautiful otter in the Museum of the Zoological Gardens is from
Ireland, and is by some considered as a distinct species. It is chiefly
found on the coast of Antrim, living in the caverns formed by the
basaltic columns of that shore, and, as it hunts the salmon, rewards are
offered for its destruction.

The flesh of all otters is extremely rank and fishy; and because it
cannot be called meat, it is often allowed to be eaten on the meager
days appointed by the Romish Church.

Captain Brown, in his Popular Natural History, tells us of a person who
kept a tame otter with his dogs, which followed him in company with
them. He hunted fish with them, and they never would hunt any other
otter as long as he was with them.

There was a tame otter in Northumberland, which also followed his master
wherever he went. He caught his own food, and returned home when
satisfied. Once he refused to come to the usual call when he was out,
and was lost for some days. At length, going back to the same place, he,
with great joy, came creeping to his master's feet, who was still
seeking his favourite.

DOGS.

Baron Cuvier says that the most useful conquest achieved by man, is the
domestication of the dog--a conquest so long completed, that it is now
impossible, with any certainty, to trace these animals to their original
type. The cleverest of naturalists have supposed them to descend from
wolves, from jackals, or from a mixture of the two; while others,
equally clever, assert that they proceeded from different species of
dogs. The latter maintain that the Dingos of Australia, the Buansas of
Nepal, or Dholes of India, the Aguaras of South America, and several
other races, are original; and although they may not have produced the
dogs which attend man, they prove that we may attribute the latter to
predecessors of the same kind, without having recourse to other animals
which they more or