nd fighting in mimic anger, or pretending to startle their
mother directly she entered the pipe on returning at intervals from
fishing.

One night, while the cubs were rougher than ever in their fun, Lutra
slipped off the platform and fell headlong down the pipe into the
stream. But almost before she had time to be frightened she discovered
that to swim was as easy as to play; and she rose to the surface with a
faint, flute-like call. She splashed somewhat wildly, for her stroke was
not yet perfected by practice. Hearing the commotion and instantly
recognising its meaning, the dam dived quietly and swiftly right beneath
the cub, and bore her gently back to the platform, where the rest of the
family, having missed their companion, had for the moment ceased to romp
and fight.

A few nights after this incident, the mother commenced in earnest to
educate her young. Tenderly taking each in turn, she carried the
nurslings into the water, and taught them, by a method and in language
known only to themselves, how to dive and swim with the least possible
exertion and disturbance.

Henceforward, throughout the summer, and till the foliage on the trees
near the pool, chilled by the rapid fall of the temperature every
evening, became thinner in the breath of the early autumn wind, the
otter-cubs fished, and frolicked, and slept, or were suckled by their
dam. Sometimes the whole family, together with the old dog-otter,
adjourned to the middle of the meadow, and in the tall, dew-drenched
grass skipped like kittens, though with comical clumsiness rather than
with the agility they displayed in the water. Like kittens, too, the
cubs played with their mother, in spite of wholesome chastisement when
they nipped her muzzle rather more severely than even long-suffering
patience could allow. The dam was at all times loath to correct her
offspring, but the sire rarely endured the familiarity of the cubs for
long. Directly they became unduly presumptuous he lumbered off to the
river, as if he considered it much more becoming to fish than to join in
the sport of his progeny. Perhaps, indeed, he deemed a change of
surroundings essential that he might forget the liberties taken with him
by his disrespectful youngsters.

When about three months old, Lutra began to show promise of that grace
of form and motion which in later life was to be one of her chief
distinctions. Her body, tail, and head gradually lengthened; and, as her
movements in th