"Long ago, the Holder of the Heavens made a very poisonous blue otter, and the Mohawks killed it and threw its body into the lake.

At the sound of the very first blow he made, thirteen gigantic otters came out of the black lake and, sitting in a circle, watched him.

She has told you how she has taken to water like a hungry otter.

" A few weeks after writing the above we caught a beautiful female otter in a trap, weighing some seventeen pounds.

The Kadiak group looks as if it might have fallen out of Cook Inlet, and one of the native legends tells us that once the Kadiak Islands were so near the Alaskan shore that a mammoth sea otter, while trying to swim through the narrow straits, got wedged between the rocks, and his tremendous struggles to free himself pushed the islands out into their present position.

But there was no time or opportunity for sad reflections; he had to renew his acquaintance with all the sights and curiosities of the rectory, to sing to the canaries, and visit the gold fish, admire the stuffed fox, and wonder that in the space of five years the voracious otter had not yet contrived to devour its prey.

"There was only the narrowest passage of water, but a great Kenai otter tried to swim the pass, and was caught fast.