"Otter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swamp willow, holly, myrtle and persimmon, entangled with grape vines, reaching the tops of trees, and Virginia creeper, game found a haven. Deer, bears, rabbits, squirrel, opossum, raccoon, foxes, weasels, mink, otter and muskrat were sheltered in the thickets and adjacent swamps, while wild ducks and geese made of the marshes, bordering the waterways, a rendezvous for days and weeks on their flights southward. The Bay at hand, and its estuaries, ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... quantities. There are parts of the forest that recall the Highlands of Scotland, though the vegetation is richer than any that Scotland can show, and in these places, unknown save to a very few, the streams are full of trout, and the otter may be hunted along the banks. The small quantity and poor quality of native guns may be held to account for the continual presence of birds and beasts in a part of the world that may not fairly be deemed remote, and where, save in times of stress, a sportsman who will treat the ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... growing and brooding things; a land of fat soil carried thither no one knows whence; a land apart and prepared. So Messasebe, having traveled many miles, came to a country inhabited by the slow snake, by the otter, and the beaver, the panther, the deer, the bear—many children whom he ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... "Last summer," he said, turning to Phil, "I was only two years old, and that Otter punished me so severely that but for Mother Beaver there, who came to my rescue in the nick of time, I should have been done for. But now—well, he will never trouble ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... think of her a moment after he had settled down in his carriage. He thought only of the future. He had written to Mrs. Otter, the massiere to whom Hayward had given him an introduction, and had in his pocket an invitation to tea on the following day. When he arrived in Paris he had his luggage put on a cab and trundled off slowly through the gay streets, over ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... have surprised you,' she said. 'And another thing; it is bedded far deeper in furs than is usual; all kinds of furs—seal, sea-otter, silver-grey fox, bear, marten, sable—every kind of fur in profusion; and the same with the ice-block sleeping-benches along the walls which you call "beds." Are your platforms and sleeping-benches better ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in the season of opening buds; Come, and molest not the otter that whistles Unlit by the moon, 'mid the wet winter bristles Of willow, half-drowned in the fattening floods. Let him catch his cold fish without fear of a gun, And the stars shall shield him, and thou wilt shun! And every little bird under the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stated in my first lecture, is shih, an imitation of the Persian shir. There is also a lion's head with a bar in its mouth, recalling the door-handles to temples in ancient Greece. Besides the snake, the tortoise, and the sea-otter, there is what is far more remarkable than any of these, namely, a horse ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... neighed to see my selfe in such liberty, but especially since I beheld so many Mares, which I thought should be my wives and concubines; and I espied out and chose the fairest before I came nigh them; but this my joyfull hope turned into otter destruction, for incontinently all the stone Horses which were well fedde and made strong by ease of pasture, and thereby much more puissant then a poore Asse, were jealous over me, and (having no regard to the law and order of God Jupiter) ranne ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... the Bannaxas, the Flat Heads, and the Umbiquas, starving during the winter? They have no buffalo in their land, and but few deer. What have they to eat? A few lean horses, perchance a bear; and the stinking flesh of the otter or beaver they may ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... an ancient market-town of Devonshire, close to the Otter, 17 m. NE. of Exeter; is famed for its pillow-lace, an industry introduced by some Flemish refugees in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of the early and the later painters, a difference which no skill, no power even can bridge over. John Van Eyck, who had lived late enough to have departed from the painting of sacred pictures alone, so that he left portraits and an otter hunt among his works, is three times represented in our National Gallery, in three greatly esteemed portraits, one a double portrait, believed to be the likenesses of the painter and his wife, standing hand in hand with a terrier dog at ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... own, which went by the name of the "Coroner's Inquest," to smoke cigars, (against which the Captain had published an interdict at home,) and question us about Oxford larks, and tell us in return stories of wild-fowl shooting, otter hunting, and salmon fishing, in all which they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... would have preferred to wear. Beside him Egide Simard, and others who had come a long road by sleigh, fastened their long fur coats as they left the church, drawing them in at the waist with scarlet sashes. The young folk of the village, very smart in coats with otter collars, gave deferential greeting to old Nazaire Larouche; a tall man with gray hair and huge bony shoulders who had in no wise altered for the mass his everyday garb: short jacket of brown cloth lined with sheepskin, patched ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... from his mouth like water over stones, and like it, flow on forever. It is music like the wind singing among the leaves. He can talk the anger from the heart of a raging moose, or he can talk the otter up from the depths of the river. Great is the ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... always been a sailorman. Well, that's his business, ain't it? If he takes my orders an' walks chalk, what do I care about his Methody game? There, boys, is the origin, history and development of Slick Dick Nickerson. If you take up this sea-otter deal and go to Point Barrow, naturally Nick has got to go as owner's agent and representative of the Comp'ny. But I couldn't send a easier fellow to get along with. Honest, now, I couldn't. Boys, you think over the proposition ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... distinct. Sitting down to dinner by chance with two farmers, one began to tell me how he had beguiled three trout the previous evening; and the other described how, as he was walking in a field of his by the river, he had seen an otter. These creatures, which are becoming sadly scarce, if not indeed extinct in many counties, are still fairly numerous in the waters here. I hope they will long remain so, for although they certainly do destroy great numbers of fish, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... are some things besides fish, that can make a shift to live in the water; but the water is not their proper, their only proper element. The frog can live in the water, but not in the water only; the otter can live in the water, but not in the water only. Give some men grace and the world, grace and sin; admit them to make use of their lusts for pleasure, and of grace to remove their guilt, and they ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... animals include the tiger, panther, leopard, bear, sable, otter, monkey, wolf, fox, twenty-seven or more species of ruminants, and numerous species of rodents. The rhinoceros, elephant, and tapir still exist in Yuennan. The domestic animals include the camel and the water-buffalo. There are about 700 species of ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... Maumee valleys, is also made plain. A glimpse of the activities at Miamitown (Fort Wayne), in the winter of 1789-1790, while it was still under the domination of the British, shows the Miamis, Shawnees and Potawatomi coming in with otter, beaver, bear skins and other peltry, the presence of a lot of unscrupulous, cheating French traders, who were generally drunk when assembled together, and who took every advantage of each other, and of the destitute savages with whom they were trading. At that time the French half-breeds ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... Ossipee, they were the only human tenants of a wilderness many thousand square miles in extent. In their wild and remote abode they were difficult of access, and the forest and the river were well stocked with moose, deer, bear, beaver, otter, lynx, fisher, mink, and marten. In this, their happy hunting-ground, the Pequawkets thought themselves safe; and they would have been so for some time longer if they had not taken up the quarrel of the Norridgewocks and made bloody raids against ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... that he had met there his kinswoman, Net-no-kwa, who, notwithstanding her sex, was then regarded as principal chief of the Ottawwaws. This woman had lost her son, of about my age, by death; and, having heard of me, she wished to purchase me to supply his place. My old Indian mother, the Otter woman, when she heard of this, protested vehemently against it. I heard her say, 'My son has been dead once, and has been restored to me; I cannot lose him again.' But these remonstrances had little influence when ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... their answer in a month's time; and after consultation with the clergy, Mr. Dudley and Mr. Ludlow, the Governor and Deputy-Governor, decided on making a treaty with them, on condition of their delivering up the murderers of the Englishmen, and paying down forty beaver and thirty otter skins, besides 400 fathoms of wampum, i.e. strings of the small whelks and Venus-shells that served as current coin, a fathom ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... that otter-skin pouch, for poor Prince Arthur slew the otter," cried Stephen. "Surely, John, you'll not let the babes ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... definite quantity of supplies, and had these deposited at Meloche's house near his camp on Parent's Creek. A commissary was appointed to distribute the provisions as required. In payment he issued letters of credit, signed with his totem, the otter. It is said that all of them were afterwards redeemed; but this is almost past belief in the face ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... inheritance of both tribes. In the winter of 1839-40, about thirty families of the former tribe camped for several weeks opposite our home and were very sociable and friendly. Diligent hunters and trappers, they accumulated fully a hundred dollars worth of otter, beaver, bear, deer, and other skins. But a trader came up from Watertown in the spring and got the whole lot in exchange for a four-gallon keg of whisky. That was a wild night that followed. Some of the noisiest came over to our house, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... at Cheyenne Pass. We made this trip and got back to Fort Laramie about November 1st. I then quit the employ of Russell, Majors & Waddell, and joined a party of trappers who were sent out by the post trader, Mr. Ward, to trap on the streams of the Chugwater and Laramie for beaver, otter, and other fur animals, and also to poison wolves for their pelts. We were out two months, but as the expedition did not prove very profitable, and was rather dangerous on account of the Indians, we abandoned the enterprise and came into Fort ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... is, and treat them accordingly, and be never too much interested in anything, but never bored; and always look beautiful, and, above all, appropriate. And I—would rather be taking the dogs for a run on the moors, in a short skirt and big boots; or up at four in the morning otter-hunting; or out with the hounds; or—or—digging in the garden, for that matter;—than be the prettiest girl in London, and going to a State ball or the opera. You see, I've tried both kinds of life now, and I know which I like best. And—and ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... the time drags on. The greaser draws his tattooed arm across his eyes and whispers, with the triumph of a lost soul bragging of the Circle of Fire, that he has known it "'otter'n this in the Red Sea, sir." He is an entertaining man. Often I hear tales from the wide world of waters from his lips. This is his last voyage, he tells me. He is going "shore donkeyman" in future—what you call longshoreman. His ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... at least four individuals). Deer (of three species). Horse (a small variety), numerous. Ox (Bos longifrons), numerous. Sheep (straight-horned), numerous. Goat (one skull). Pig (both wild and domesticated). Wolf. Fox. Otter. Beaver (one skull). Voles (of different ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... Gwyon saw her from a distance and turned into a hare and redoubled his speed, but she at once became a hound, forced him to turn around and chased him towards a river. He jumped in and became a fish, but his enemy pursued him quickly in the shape of an otter, so that he had to assume the form of a bird and fly up into the air. But the element gave him no place of refuge, for the woman became a falcon, came after him and would have caught him [forms ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... him after what hap—I'm going to slap the very first millionaire I meet—maybe he'll propose to me." She was suddenly dismayed. "Why, I can't afford to buy YOU a wedding-gift—you'll expect a diamond sunburst or a set of sea- otter. I didn't dress for dinner either; I suppose I should ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... has become of them all? We don't even see the birds of prey. The eagles, the hawks, and the owls have all gone.... There are fewer of every sort of wild beast, too. Nowadays, brother, even the wolf and the fox have grown rare, let alone the bear or the otter. And you know in old days there were even elks! For forty years I have been observing the works of God from year to year, and it is my opinion that everything is going ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... be looking this way," he said, adding, "There's sure to be a signaller with Otter or Herchmer. They'll think it a queer thing to get a message from the enemy's lines"—he laughed light-heartedly at the idea. "Now, do keep out of sight, for there's just a chance of a bullet or two being ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... otter, marten, and mink, were also in demand but brought smaller prices. Moose hides sold well, and so did bear skins. Some buffalo hides were brought to Montreal, but in proportion to their value they were bulky and took up so much room in the canoes that the Indians ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... lived three friends: a Monkey, a Jackal and an Otter; each of these creatures got food on his own hunting ground. In the evening they met together, and the Hare taught his companions many wise things: that the moral law should be observed, that alms should be given to the poor, and that holy ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... kill any otter, mink, marten, sable, or fur seal, or other fur-bearing animal within the limits of Alaska Territory or in the waters thereof; and every person guilty thereof shall for each offense be fined not less than $200 nor more than $1,000, or imprisoned not more ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... advance in the boats was made, the water becoming too swift to be stemmed, This day Cary got the second ducking of the trip—a very good record in view of the roughness of the work and the smallness of the boats. During this and the day previous an otter, a crow and a robin were seen. As a rule the river was almost ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... never go to a 'otter place. For God's sake, Mr. Leopold, don't let him come near me with the warming-pan, or else he'll melt the little flesh ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... mountain opposite my house something more (I think) than one thousand feet; but the mountain estimated by him and myself is probably higher than that next Rockfish Gap. I do not remember from what principles I estimated the Peaks of Otter at four thousand feet; but some late observations of Judge Tucker's coincided very nearly with my estimate. Your measures confirm another opinion of mine that the Blue Ridge, on its south side, is the highest ridge in our ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... cannot wonder that osteologists are at variance as to whether certain remains found in caverns are of the same species as those now living; whether, for example, the Talpa fossilis is really the common mole, the Meles morreni the common badger, Lutra antiqua the otter of Europe, Sciurus priscus the squirrel, Arctomys primigenia the marmot, Myoxus fossilis the dormouse, Schmerling's Felis engihoulensis the European lynx, or whether Ursus spelaeus and Ursus priscus are not extinct races of the ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... the three. He told the story of the Maribyrnong Plate sometimes; and when he described how Whalley on Red Hat, said, as the mare fell under him—"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" and how, next instant, Sithee There and White Otter had crushed the life out of poor Whalley, and the dust hid a small hell of men and horses, no one marveled that Brunt had dropped jump-races and Australia together. Regula Baddun's owner knew that ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... down to unknown depths upon them, and not even the wary trout can elude him. Uncle Nathan said he had seen the loon disappear and in a moment come up with a large trout, which he would cut in two with his strong beak, and swallow piecemeal. Neither the loon nor the otter can bolt a fish under the water; he must come to the surface to dispose of it. (I once saw a man eat a cake under water in London.) Our guide told me he had seen the parent loon swimming with a single young one upon its back. When closely pressed it dove, or "div" as he would have it, and ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... an otter killed among your reeds, or a hawk in the sulks, is an event in the country. Anything would be a relief from the weekly total of London deaths, which is our chief subject of conversation, or the General's complaints that there is no ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... of Ireland but a litle: Commodities of it I will entitle, Hides, and fish, Salmon, Hake, Herringe, Irish wooll, and linen cloth, faldinge, And marterns goode ben her marchandie, Hertes Hides, and other of Venerie.[8] Skinnes of Otter, Squirell and Irish hare, Of sheepe, lambe, and Fox, is her chaffare, Felles of Kiddes, and Conies great plentie. So that if Ireland helpe vs to keepe the sea, Because the King cleped is Rex Angli, And is Dominus also Hyberni, Old possessed by Progenitours: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... the pathway by the river-side, and soon we came to the wide marshes, which are only two miles off the sea. There we were standing under a willow, watching for the fish which were swimming down the river in little shoals, when we heard a splash on the opposite bank; it was an otter that had dived into the river, and caught a fish, with which we saw it climb on to the bank again. Men used to hunt the otter with dogs and spears; and sometimes otters have been trained to catch fish and bring them to land, but we do not often find ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... and over the wooded heights of Hunaland. Late one afternoon they came to a mountain stream at a place where it poured over a ledge of rocks and fell in clouds of spray into a rocky gorge below. As they stood, and with pleased eyes gazed upon the waterfall, they saw near the bank an otter lazily making ready to eat a salmon which he had caught. Then Loki, ever bent on doing mischief, hurled a stone at the harmless beast, and killed it. And he boasted loudly that he had done a worthy deed. He took both the otter and the fish which it had caught, ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... claim Connecticut. They built a trading-post at Hartford, where they swapped bone collar-buttons with the Indians for beaver-and otter-skins. Traders from Plymouth who went up the river were threatened by the Dutch, but they pressed on and established a ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... stood the Indian hamlet, there the lake Spread its blue sheet that flashed with many an oar, Where the brown otter plunged him from the brake, And the deer drank: as the light gale flew o'er, The twinkling maize-field rustled on the shore; And while that spot, so wild, and lone, and fair, A look of glad and guiltless beauty wore, And peace was on the earth and in the air, The warrior ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... which is officially confirmed. Occurrences during eleven weeks residence in the town of Port Louis and on board the Harriet cartel. Parole and certificates. Departure from Port Louis, and embarkation in the Otter. Eulogium on the inhabitants of Mauritius. Review of the conduct of general De Caen. Passage to the Cape of Good Hope, and after seven weeks stay, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... made me vicious now," he said to himself; and, as he sat back, he saw something which sent a thought through his brain which made him hug his knees. "Let me see," he mused: "Vane can swim and dive like an otter, and Gil is better in the water than I am. All right, my boy; you shall pitch ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... beaver, water rat, and otter, are said to have the foramen ovale of the heart open, which communicates from one cavity of it to the other; and that, during their continuance under water, the blood can thus for a time circulate without passing through the lungs; but ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... is afraid of Mademoiselle Irma, who has already thrown her mantle upon the sofa and crowned the bronze Venus de Milo with her otter toque. The young man excuses himself, he is expected ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... French flag waved over a foot of American ground. This clever Indian, needing supplies to carry on his war, used civilized methods to get them on credit. He gave promissory notes written on birch bark, signed with his own totem, or tribe-mark—a picture of the otter. These notes were ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... meters in the Marianas Trench Natural resources: oil and gas fields, polymetallic nodules, sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, fish Environment: endangered marine species include the dugong, sea lion, sea otter, seals, turtles, and whales; oil pollution in Philippine Sea and South China Sea; dotted with low coral islands and rugged volcanic islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean; subject to tropical cyclones (typhoons) ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... international renown. The trade to Peruvian insurgents of condemned rifles was to be regretted only because the ring manipulating it was broken up. The appropriation of a schooner in the harbor of Callao was a story in itself; while the robbery of thirty thousand dollars' worth of sea-otter skins from a Russian trading-post in Alaska, accomplished chiefly through the agency of a barrel of rum manufactured from sugar-cane, was ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... a tribe of the lake regions. He took her to the lake and taught her not to fear it, and they frolicked in its waves together, and she learned to swim as well as he, and to dive as smoothly as a loon or otter, and was a water nymph such as the creatures of the wood had never seen. He was very vain of her art acquired so swiftly, though in conversation he gave vast credit to her teacher. And in the catching of the black bass there came eventually to the nine-ounce split bamboo in ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... the foaming rapids of the Winnipeg, how well he knows its various ways! To him it seems to possess life and instinct, he speaks of it as one would of a high-mettled charger which will do any thing if he be rightly handled. It gives him his test of superiority, his proof of courage. To shoot the Otter Falls or the Rapids of the Barriere, to carry his canoe down the whirling eddies of Portage-de-l'Isle, to lift her from the rush of water at the Seven Portages, or launch her by the edge of the whirlpool below the Chute-a-Jocko, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... they all gathered; there was the otter, the beaver, the lynx, and the wolverine. Ojeeg said good-bye to his wife and son, and the party set out. For twenty days they travelled through the snow, and at last came to the foot of a mountain. The animals were all very tired ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... wounded, and fallen back from the seat in front. He spoke now in a curious, dreamy voice. "Get off the top of my broken leg—damn you to everlasting hell!" Steve squirmed to one side. "Sorry. Gawd knows I wish I wasn't any nearer it than the Peaks of Otter!" There was a triangular tear in the canvas. He drew down the flap and looked out. "They were Ashby's men—all those three!" He began to cry, though noiselessly. "They hadn't ought to cut at me like that—shooting, too, without looking! ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... by the hot sand, hauling my boat down the shallow river, Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where the buck turns furiously at the hunter, Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where the otter is feeding on fish, Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou, Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tall; Over the growing ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... "I guess you otter know it as well as anybody," Henry retorted angrily. "Your ma was allus askin' me to take care of you, and you was a nuisance, too, you was, Isaac. You was allus a-blubberin' and a-swallerin' somethin'. You mind the time you swallered my copper cent, don't ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... hook and line She raised her eyes as she heard the patter of footsteps upon the shore, but did not exhibit any alarm when she saw the two young men. The ordinary young woman of the Shell People did not worry when away from land. She could swim like an otter and dive like a loon, and of wild beasts she had no fear when she was thus safely bestowed away from the death-harboring forest. The maiden on the ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... them—seal, sea-otter, beaver, skunk, marten, and a few bear, the sight of all raising up in our hearts endless ideas of sport and adventure possibly never to ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... four houses only, situated on this channel, behind several marshy islands formed by two small creeks. On our arrival they gave us some fish, and we afterwards purchased wappatoo roots, fish, three dogs, and two otter-skins, for which we gave fish-hooks chiefly, that being an article which they ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... you enter the woods Of a summer evening late, When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools Where the otter whistles his mate. (They fear not men in the woods. Because they see so few) You will hear the beat of a horse's feet, And the swish of a skirt in the dew, Steadily cantering through The misty solitudes, As though ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... [Footnote 18: Otter (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. ii.) is probably the only Frank who has visited the independent Barbarians of Tephrice now Divrigni, from whom he fortunately escaped in the train ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... absorbing interest in the appearance of the seventeen-year locust in Chittenden County than in a Balkan outbreak; less of interest in the failing state of health of the Czar than in the prospects for the hay crop in the Otter ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... moving shade. Large white dogs with black and yellow spots swam uncertainly about the pool and searched the bank; a group of men stood in the rapid, while another group watched the tail of the pool. Somewhere between them a hard-pressed otter hid. ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... carcajo drag down the hunger-weakened caribou and the deer, and rip the warm, red flesh from their bones before their eyes have glazed. And, in turn, the wolf and the carcajo, the unoffending beaver and musquash, the mink, the fisher, the fox, and the otter are trapped by savage man and the pelts ripped from their twitching bodies while life and sensibility remain. They are harder to skin when cold. And with the thermometer at forty or sixty below zero, the little bodies chill almost instantly ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... even in an imagination better than that of a savage, have been construed into actual forms of spirits, the Indians had, from time immemorial, made their offerings to the genius of the cataract—strips of rude cloth, the skin of the beaver and the otter, baskets woven of sweet grasses, and, after the advent of the white man, pieces of metal or strings of precious beads. Such valued things as these were in rude adoration placed upon rocks or uplifted scaffolds near to the brink of the abyss. This was the spot most commonly ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... burrows with several entrances; some even arrange several rooms, each for a special object. The Otter seeks its food in the water, and actively hunts fish in ponds and rivers. But when fishing is over, it likes to keep dry and at the same time sheltered from terrestrial enemies. Its dwelling must also present an easy opening into the water. In order ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... question. He scratched his head thoughtfully. "Let me see," said he, "I have several close cousins in the Skunk branch of the family, but I presume you want to know who my cousins are outside of the Skunk branch. They are Shadow the Weasel, Billy Mink and Little Joe Otter. These are the only ones I can think ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... wholly so, with the sole exception of their moccasins. In winter they were clad in tunics and leggins of skin, and at all seasons, on occasions of ceremony, were wrapped from head to foot in robes of beaver or otter furs, sometimes of the greatest value. On the inner side, these robes were decorated with painted figures and devices, or embroidered with the dyed quills of the Canada hedgehog. In this art of embroidery, however, the Hurons were equalled or surpassed by some of the Algonquin tribes. They wore ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... down south, and try to obtain intelligence of Mr. Fox and his crew. In the meantime, having reached some of the goods most at hand, we commenced, with the natives who came every day to the vessel, a trade for beaver-skins, and sea-otter stones. ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... demanded investigation, he put a pot of coffee on the fire and swiftly roped and saddled one of his horses. In thirty minutes he was riding up the side of a high hill which lay between the station and Otter Creek, a branch of the Shellfish, at the mouth of which, some miles ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... an everlastin' sweet girl), 'Sally,' he used to say, 'now's the time to larn when you are young; store your mind well, dear, and the fragrance will remain long arter the rose has shed its leaves. The otter of roses is stronger than the rose, and a plaguy sight more valuable.' Sall wrote it down; she said it warn't a bad idee that; but father larfed, he said he guessed minister's courtin' days warn't over, when ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... but translucent blue, which refracted the slanting rays of the morning and evening sun into masses of color more gorgeous than a dreamer's vision of an enchanted land. At Lynchburg we saw the famed Peaks of Otter—twenty miles away—lifting their proud heads far into the clouds, like giant watch-towers sentineling the gateway that the mighty waters of the James had forced through the barriers of solid adamant lying across their path to the far-off sea. What we had seen many miles back start from the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... whilst otter-hunting in Gwyn Pennant, Llandrillo, saw something reddish scampering away across the ground just before them. They thought it was an otter, and watching it saw that it entered a hole by the side of the river. When they reached ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... his absence. So the old gentleman now asked for the promised skins. He was handed one hundred marked goose quills representing that number of skins. After checking them over in bunches of ten, he entrusted twenty to his eldest grandson, Ne-geek—The Otter—to be held in reserve for ammunition and tobacco, and ten to his eldest granddaughter, Neykia, with which to purchase an outfit for the ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Gwyn Pennant, Llandrillo, saw something reddish scampering away across the ground just before them. They thought it was an otter, and watching it saw that it entered a hole by the side of the river. When they reached the place they found, underneath the roots of a tree, two burrows. They immediately set to work to catch their prey. Whilst one of the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... nature so well, and wrote the pretty verses accompanying the illustrations in the Speckter Fables, named for the artist, a book still popular with little German boys and girls. I was also warmly attached to the enthusiastic Hubotter, who, under the name of "Otter," afterwards became the ornament of many of the larger German theatres. Lindenbein, Brosin, the talented Gosrau, and the no less gifted Schwalbe, were also ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... happened, was hunting, and the stranger was an otter. The big trout was just such quarry as he sought, and his bright eyes, peering restlessly on every side, left no corner of the pool uninvestigated. They caught sight of the master's silver and vermilion sides, his ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... drawn in at the waist with a broad belt, gave his strong figure just the dash of wildness suited to the armament with which it was weighted. A heavy gun lay in the hollow of his shoulder under which hung an otter-skin bullet-pouch with its clear powder-horn and white bone charger. In his belt were two huge flint-lock ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... one showed marks of the teeth of rodents. According to Prof. F.A. Lucas, of the National Museum, they all belong to modern species except one tooth, which is that of the cave tapir, and (possibly) the jaw of an otter. ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... and his Dame; And there my good friend, Stephen Otter; And, ere the light of evening fail, To them I must relate the Tale Of Peter Bell ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... and their languages he held a council on the raft. He told them that if he could get even a very little of the old world that was drowned he could make a new world for them all. He first asked the otter if he would try, and see if he could dive down and bring up a little portion of the earth. The otter at once made the attempt, but after a while he came up to the surface apparently quite dead. Nanahboozhoo reached out and lifted him in and placed him in a sunny spot on the raft. Then the beaver ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... north; but the glutton, the lynx, and even the elk are rapidly disappearing. The wild boar is confined to the basin of the Dwina, and the Bison eropea to the Bielovyezha forests. The sable has quite disappeared, being found only on the Urals; the beaver is found at a few places in Minsk, and the otter is very rare. On the other hand, the hare and also the grey partridge, the hedgehog, the quail, the lark, the rook, and the stork find their way into the coniferous region as the forests are cleared. The avifauna is very rich; it includes all the forest and ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... few francs lost at cards, might very likely tell the secrets he heard at Tonsard's to Viollet; or he might let them out over his punch without realizing the importance of such gossip. But as the information of the old otter man might be instigated by thirst, Rigou paid no attention except so far as it concerned Plissoud, whose situation was likely to inspire him with a desire to counteract the coalition against Les Aigues, if only to get his paws greased by one or the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... who have best succeeded on the stage, Have still conform'd their genius to their age. Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show, When men were dull, and conversation low. Then comedy was faultless, but 'twas coarse: Cobb's tankard was a jest, and Otter's horse. And, as their comedy, their love was mean; Except, by chance, in some one labour'd scene, Which must atone for an ill-written play. They rose, but at their height could seldom stay. 10 Fame then was cheap, and the first comer ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... some time he came to a large lake; on looking about, he discovered a very large otter on an island. He thought to himself, "His skin will make me a fine pouch," and immediately drew up, at long shots, and drove an arrow into his side. He waded into the lake, and with some difficulty dragged him ashore. He took out the entrails, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... and which in due time returns back to him with increase. My Persian silks and velvets are now travelling into Khorassan, and will bring me back the lambskins of Bokhara. My agents, provided with gold and otter skins, are ready at Meshed to buy the shawls of Cashmere, and the precious stones of India. At Astrakan, my cotton stuffs are to be bartered against sables, cloth and glass ware; and the Indian goods which I buy at Bassorah and send to Aleppo are to return to me ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... transactions with the Indians he learned that tradition among the Aleuts assigned Kagamale, the island in question, as the last resting-place of a great chief, known as Karkhayahouchak. Last year the captain was in the neighborhood of Kagamale, in quest of sea-otter and other furs and he bore up for the island, with the intention of testing the truth of the tradition he had heard. He had more difficulty in entering the cave than in finding it, his schooner having to beat on ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... midst of the sombre green foliage, rose the naked carcass of Thomas Troubridge, Esq., preparing for a header, while at his feet were grouped three or four black fellows, one of whom as we watched slid off the rock like an otter. The reach was covered with black heads belonging to the savages, who were swimming in all directions, while groups of all ages and both sexes stood about on the bank in ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... was upon them, and the lights in the waiting car outside suddenly came on with a suggestive completeness. Georgiana assisted her guests into luxurious coats and capes made of or lined with chinchilla, with otter, with sable; handed gloves and muffs; and listened to all manner of affectionate parting speeches, every one of which contained pressing invitations for visits, short or long. Each girl made promises of future calls, and professed herself eager to come and stay with Georgiana at ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... in the sea which have escaped the destroying deluge of peat-moss,—outcrops of firm and fertile land, which in the early Middle Age were so many natural parks, covered with richest grass and stateliest trees, swarming with deer and roe, goat and boar, as the streams around swarmed with otter and beaver, and with fowl of every feather, and fish of ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... house but Macleod's, that is not much below your habitation at Brighthelmstone. In the mountains there are stags and roebucks, but no hares, and few rabbits; nor have I seen anything that interested me as a zoologist, except an otter, bigger than I thought an otter ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... what he had for such—the eyes of the child began to wander about the darkness, to which they had already got so far accustomed as to make the most of the scanty light. Presently she fancied she saw something glitter, away in the darkness—two things: they must be eyes!—the eyes of an otter or of a polecat, in which creatures the caves along the shore abounded. Seized with sudden fright, she ran to the laird and laid her hand on his ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... rowed back again, Giles described the habits of the birds which frequented this reedy spot. Jamie listened open-eyed to his accounts of the moor-hen, flapper, coot, water-rail, dab-chick, and sand-piper, to say nothing of rats in abundance, and an otter now and then. If you crept upon the islet very quietly, you could hear the rats before you saw them. Carefully listening to the sounds, you frequently discovered the rat himself, generally on the stump of some old tree, or on the bare ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... and precision reigned supreme, especially in his hall, which, though barely ten feet square, was a cabinet of rural curiosities. His guns, his fishing-tackle, a cabinet of birds stuffed by himself, a fox in a glass-case that seemed absolutely running, and an otter with a real fish in its mouth, in turn delighted them; but chiefly, perhaps, his chimney-corner of Dutch tiles, all Scriptural subjects, which Venetia and Plantagenet ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... "You hadn't otter worry about Davy, ma'am, not when he's with me." His long whip was swinging in the air, but he checked it, that he might turn to me and ask: "Now, Davy, you're sure you have your ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... Bradley exclaimed. The three, transformers cut off, were back in the middle room of their suite. "You can outswim an otter, and I happen to know that you came up out of the old ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... take charge of the children till I come back? I am going down to the river to catch fish, and when I come back, I'll share the catch with you." The Mouse-deer replied, "Very well! go along, and I'll look after the children." So the Otter went down to the river to ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... be about that of beeswax. This is produced by annotta, or otter, rubbed into the milk at the time of setting, when warm from the cow—or, if the milk has stood till cold, after it has been warmed. Cold milk must, before setting, be warmed to about blood or milk heat. This coloring process has no virtue but ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... showed Man several other animals: one somewhat like an alligator, another with a long scaly tail with which it could kill a man at one stroke; some walruses, and otter, and many kinds of fish. They finally came to a place where the shore rose before them, and the ripples on the surface of ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... following explanation is given: "The cross signifies, 'I will barter or trade.' Three animals are drawn on the right hand of the cross; one is a buffalo; the two others, a weasel (Mustela Canadensis) and an otter. The writer offers in exchange for the skins of these animals (probably meaning that of a white buffalo) the articles which he has drawn on the left side of the cross. He has, in the first place, depicted ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... Most likely he wanted to secure as much of the river and meadow land as he could, with some high open heathy ground on the hill as common land where the cattle could graze, and some wood to supply timber and fuel. Probably all the slopes of the hills on each side of the valley of the Otter were covered with wood. The top of the gravelly hill to the southward was all heather and furze, as indeed it is still, and this reached all the way to Southampton and the Forest. The whole district was called Itene or Itchen, like the river. The name meant in ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the same be departed with by the Queen's Government, with their consent first had and obtained for their individual benefit, if any value can be realized therefor; and with regard to the band of Wood Indians of whom Ta-pas-ta-num or Donald William Sinclair Ross is Chief, a reserve at Otter Island on the west side of Cross Lake of one hundred and sixty acres for each family of five, or in that proportion for smaller families, reserving however to Her Majesty, her successors, and her subjects, the free navigation of ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... know without words spoken of the assembling of the tribe. To the distant village at the isthmus they hurried, and to the cove on the western coast, some twenty miles away, to which a band of warriors had gone several days before to hunt the otter. That no one among his people might remain in ignorance of his command, Torquam even caused signal fires to be kindled on each of the twin peaks, extinct volcanoes, near the center of the island. Smoke rising there was visible from every corner of his land, and woe to any subject ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... new fuel upon the fire, when the curtain at the cave's entrance was drawn aside, and there she saw Kenric himself. He wore an otter skin cap that covered his ears, and a great ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... cook o' ourn made up all our marmalade and currant jelly into pies that looked 'n' bit 'n' tasted like wagon dope wropt in tough brown paper; hot! 's hot this minute 's Elise Lievre's woman got last Spring when she heerd o' him a-sittin' up t' a Otter Lake squaw. Why, say! youse couldn't no more keep a gun from rustin' in this wet bush 'thout hot water than Warry Hilliams can kill anything ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... now entered the high, overhanging swamp, where the shaggy trees, the looping vines, and the rank, pulpous undergrowth grew thick on both sides, reaching far back, a wet, heavy wilderness without a path, except for the silent feet of the mink and the otter, and the more silent feet of the creek, here a narrow stream winding darkly down ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... profession not marked as a leader in any one act of able or successful enterprise, unless his leading on (or his following) the allied army of Amazonian and male cannibal Parisians to Versailles, on the famous 6th of October, 1789, is to make his glory. Any otter exploit of his, as a general, I never heard of. But the triumph of general fraternity was but the more signalized by the total want of particular claims in that case,—and by postponing all such claims in a case where they really existed, where they stood embossed, and in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... possible combinations while the clothing of her beautiful wildlings is preparing. No matter what the circumstances of their lives may be, she never allows them to go dirty or ragged. The mole, living always in the dark and in the dirt, is yet as clean as the otter or the wave-washed seal; and our wild sheep, wading in snow, roaming through bushes, and leaping among jagged storm-beaten cliffs, wears a dress so exquisitely adapted to its mountain life that it is always found as unruffled and stainless ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... flocks of sheep in their flight. The very names of the Devonshire rivers were like homely music to him, and he would say the names over to himself for the pleasure of their sound: Taw and Tamar and Torridge, the Teign and the Dart and the Exe, and the rivers about Boveyhayne, the Sid and the Otter, the Coly, the Axe and ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... young Indian girls, whose bodies were all stained with puccoon and painted with gay colors, while such garments as they wore were made of brilliant green leaves. "Pocahontas, as leader, wore a head-dress of buck's horns and girdle of otter-skin; across her shoulder was slung a quiver filled with arrows, and she carried a bow. Her companions all carried rattles made of dried gourds, or clubs, or wooden swords as they rushed out of the forest yelling and swaying ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... describing it as a mixture of coffee and chicory. It was sold at the price of coffee. It turned out to be a mixture containing 40% of chicory. The high court held that this was an excessive quantity, and was added for the purpose of fraudulently increasing the bulk or weight. In another case, however (Otter v. Edgley, 1893, 57 J.P. 457), where an inspector had asked for French coffee and had been supplied with a mixture containing 60% of chicory, the article being labelled as a mixture, the high court held that there was no ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... "Little Otter! Is it you, my younger brother? Is it really you?" I repeated again and again, while his brilliant eyes seemed to devour my face, and his sinewy grip ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... ear as he rises from the dark passage under water that leads to his house, then he forgets all settled habits and joins in the general heyday of nature. The well built house that sheltered him from storm and cold, and defied even the wolverine to dig its owner out, is deserted for any otter's den or chance hole in the bank where he may sleep away the sunlight in peace. The great dam, upon which he toiled so many nights, is left to the mercy of the freshet or the canoeman's axe; and no plash of falling water through a break—that sound which in autumn or winter brings the ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... was covering the ground with extraordinary swiftness. Moreover, he moved so silently that even on the frost-held soil his step could not be heard, and so carefully that not a reed stirred as he threaded in and out among their clumps like an otter, his head crouched down and his long bow pointed before him as though it were a spear. Half a minute more, and he was before them—a very strange man to see. His years were not so many, thirty perhaps, and yet his face looked quite old ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Tarn of the Elk are large, undoubtedly, but they are also few in number and shy in disposition. Either some of the peasants have been fishing over them with the deadly "otter," or else they belong to that variety of the trout family known as TRUTTA DAMNOSA,—the species which you can see but cannot take. We watched these aggravating fish playing on the surface at sunset; we saw them dart beneath our boat in the early morning; but not until ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... on fish are amphibious: such is the otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving, that it makes great havoc among the inhabitants of the waters. Not supposing that we had any of those beasts in our shadow brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter brought ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... says the Nubian geographer, (p. 121,) is in margine solitudinis, 61 leagues from Bagdad, and two stations from Cufa. Otter (Voyage, tom. i. p. 163) reckons 15 leagues, and observes, that the place is supplied with dates ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... nation was 2850, of whom 1400 were children, seven hundred and fifty women, and seven hundred warriors. They resided in their villages and had about seven hundred stand of arms. Their trade was principally in deer skins, with some bear and a few otter, beaver and raccoon skins. The total number of the Foxes was 1750, of whom eight hundred and fifty were children, five hundred women and four hundred warriors, with about four hundred stand of arms. Their number ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... garment save a breech-clout and a gigantic headdress of feathers, shells and beads, he straightened himself to his great height. A horrible mask, distorting human lineaments, covered the face, and a medicine-bag of otter skin hung from his back and dangling from one arm as an ornament hung the dried hand of an enemy long since dead. On account of his stature and in spite of the mask, Smith recognized The Powhatan, and drew himself up proudly ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... intreat largely of other vermin, as the polecat, the miniver, the weasel, stote, fulmart, squirrel, fitchew, and such like, which Cardan includeth under the word Mustela: also of the otter, and likewise of the beaver, whose hinder feet and tail only are supposed to be fish. Certes the tail of this beast is like unto a thin whetstone, as the body unto a monstrous rat: as the beast also itself is of such force in the teeth that it will gnaw a hole through a thick plank, or shere ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... mountain men in fringed and beaded buckskins, long haired, gaunt and weather scarred; men whose pasts were unknown and unasked, who trapped and hunted and lived in the lodges with their squaws. There were black-eyed Canadian voyageurs in otter-skin caps and coats made of blankets, hardy as Indian ponies, gay and light of heart, who poled the keel boats up the rivers to the chanting of old French songs. There were swarthy half-breeds, still of tongue, stolid and eagle-featured, wearing their blankets ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... bought some bright, gay-lookin' suits, and some brilliant neckties—pale blue silk, with red polka dots on 'em, and some otter-colored ones. ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... sides of a ruddy gold, like the handsomest Test trout, but they almost invariably miss the hook. You do not land one out of twenty. The reason is, apparently, that people from the nearest town use the otter in the summer evenings, when these trout rise best. In a Sutherland loch, Mr. Edward Moss tells us (in "A Season in Sutherland"), that he once found an elegant otter, a well-made engine of some unscrupulous tourist, lying in the bottom of the water on ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... suckle its young, so much did it differ from mammals in some respects, though looking so like them on the whole. And presently a report arose in the learned world that the new animal which had been classed at all risks among mammals (it having the close fur and almost the body of the otter), a report arose, I say, that this ornithorhynchus of Blumenbach laid eggs like a real duck. The uproar in the Academies was tremendous. As early as 1829, indeed, a learned Englishman, Sir Everard Home had sent over to France an authenticated drawing, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... Marquis, Duke, Emperor Lamb, and finally Pope Innocent; and other lively matters fit to solace an English mathematician self-banished to China. The same year Mary Lamb describes her brother taking to water like a hungry otter—abstaining from all spirituous liquors, but with the most indifferent result, as he became full of cramps and rheumatism, and so cold internally that fire could not warm him. It is but just to Lamb to mention that this ascetic period was brief. This same year Lamb ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... bows were not fifty yards distant, and the crocodile was still more than a hundred behind me. But I well knew that these amphibious monsters can far outswim a man. Through the water they make progress as an otter, and with like rapidity. I felt sure I should ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... the sun like so many boarders at a country hotel. They crowd upon the rocks as thickly as they can, and blink there all day long unless disturbed by the approach of a boat, when they dive clumsily but quickly. Occasionally, one sees an otter, with seal-like head above the surface of the water, swimming swiftly from haunt to haunt in pursuit of the bass; and small coteries of summer ducks fly swiftly from sedge ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... these prowlers, frequent the places of confinement, and learning the particular case of some prisoner for small debt or slight assault, kindly otter to mediate with the prosecutor or creditor in effecting liberation. The pretended friend assumes the most disinterested feeling of sympathy, ingratiates himself into confidence, and generally terminates his machinations with success; accomplishes the prisoner's release, and sends him ultimately ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... private key, unlocked the casket, raised the lid, and produced a golden goblet of a singular and antique appearance, moulded into the shape of a rampant bear, which the owner regarded with a look of mingled reverence, pride, and delight, that irresistibly reminded Waverley of Ben Jonson's Tom Otter, with his Bull, Horse, and Dog, as that wag wittily denominated his chief carousing cups. But Mr. Bradwardine, turning towards him with complacency, requested him to observe this curious relic of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... music on board, and appeared rather like a pleasure yacht than a trader; yet, in connection with the Loriotte, Clementine, Bolivar, Convoy, and other small vessels, belonging to sundry Americans at Oahu, she carried on a great trade—legal and illegal—in otter skins, silks, teas, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the afternoon of the 5th, she left us for Plymouth, to make arrangements for the bidding. I did not see her depart, having been occupied since five in the morning in a glorious otter-hunt, for which Mr. Rogers had brought over his hounds. The heat of the day found us far up-stream, and a good ten miles from home; and by the time Mr. Rogers had returned his pack to Miss Belcher's hospitable kennels the sun was low in the west. I know nothing that will make a man ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... of the hands. Russia did not want foreigners spying on her hunting-grounds. Nevertheless, Ledyard was given a present of fresh Chinese silk underwear, treated to the hottest Russian brandy in the barracks, and put comfortably to bed on a couch of otter skins. From his bed, he saw the Indians crowd in for evening services before a little Russian crucifix, the two traders leading prayers. These were the tribes, whom the Russians had hunted with dogs fifty years before; and who in turn had ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... arranged to go out before breakfast, they did not remember that it was Midsummer Morning. They only wanted to see the otter which, old Hobden said, had been fishing their brook for weeks; and early morning was the time to surprise him. As they tiptoed out of the house into the wonderful stillness, the church clock struck five. Dan took a few steps across the dew-blobbed lawn, and looked ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... eyebrows, and a hawk nose. His upper lip was clean shaven, but from his chin a flowing beard of iron-gray hung nearly to his waist. He was clad in a riding-gown of black velvet that hung a little lower than the knee, trimmed with otter fur and embroidered with silver goshawks—the crest of ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... character. Born in Kentucky, he said, he early took to the plains and mountains, and joined the hunters and trappers, when he was so young he could not set a trap. When he became older, he turned trapper himself, and trapped all over our territories for beaver, otter, etc., from the Missouri to the Pacific, and from British America to Mexico. Next he passed into Government employ, as an Indian scout and guide, and as such piloted Fremont and others all over the Plains and through the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Fremont, in his reports, ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... In its chases ranged herds of deer, protected by the terrible forest-laws, then in full force: and the hardier huntsman might follow the wolf to his lair in the mountains; might spear the boar in the oaken glades, or the otter on the river's brink; might unearth the badger or the fox, or smite the fierce cat-a-mountain with a quarrel from his bow. A nobler victim sometimes, also, awaited him in the shape of a wild mountain bull, a denizen of the forest, and a remnant of the herds that had once browsed upon ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "There's an otter in the river," remarked Val, examining the little dagger, the same that Lawrence had given Bernard. "I heard him from the bridge. They come down from the upper reaches. Remind me to tell Jack, he's always charmed to get ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... bishops or nobles, who entertained him royally. It may be that one day he came on a visit to Bodo's masters and stopped at the big house on his way to Paris, and then Bodo saw him plain; for Charlemagne would come riding along the road in his jerkin of otter skin, and his plain blue cloak (Einhard tells us that he hated grand clothes and on ordinary days dressed like the common people);[19] and after him would come his three sons and his bodyguard, and then his five daughters. Einhard ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... country in this Pleistocene period were the elk and reindeer, which link us on to the older and colder period when Arctic conditions prevailed; the Irish deer, a creature of great size whose head weighed about eighty pounds; bison, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, lion, wolf, otter, bear, horse, red deer, roe, urus or gigantic ox, the short-horned ox (bos longifrons), boar, badger and many others which survive to the present day, and have therefore a very ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... suffered to decay. They are gathered by the little lemmings and meadow-mice, who, in their turn, become the prey of two species of mustelidae, the ermine and vison weasels. Have the fish of the lakes no enemy? Yes—a terrible one in the Canada otter. The mink-weasel, too, pursues them; and in summer, the osprey, the great pelican, the cormorant, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the Youth's Companion for permission to reprint the following stories: "When Little Bear Bragged," "When Mother Skunk Helped Little Bear," "When Little Bear Would Not Work," "How Little Bear Learned to Swim," "Little Bear and the Lost Otter Baby," "When Little Bear Visited School," "Little Bear Gets His Wish," and "Little Bear's Surprise Party"; and to the Christian Observer for permission to reprint the following stories: "Three Bears Come to ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... difference grows wider and wider, till in the southern lowlands there is no resemblance to eastern types at all. Once the streams everywhere had thousands of happy beaver, with their homes in the river banks, or in waters deepened by their clever dams. Otter, too, were there. The larger rivers are not favourable for fish on account of the vast amount of sediment, but in the smaller, especially in the mountain streams, trout were abundant. In Green River occurs a salmon-trout attaining a length of at least four feet. This ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Stores and ammunition filled her hull; carpenters' tools, tea-chests, bags of plaster, uniforms, cannon, small arms, beads and trinkets of no value save to the Indian, silk and wool and a beautiful window for the cathedral. And in return she was to carry away mink, otter ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... reckless, lithe of figure, thoroughbred, ardent. His eyes were sparkling at the prospect of excitement; not only had the Russians, by their nefarious appropriation of the northwestern corner of the continent and a recent piratical excursion in pursuit of otter, inspired the Spanish Government with a profound disapproval and mistrust, but a rumor had run up the coast that made every sea-gull look like the herald of a hostile fleet. This was young Arguello's first taste of command, and life was dull on the northern peninsula; ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... there fishing-basket of yours, and the wallet, and laid them upon that nice dry sandy place close up to the fire along by which there were ever so many heads of those little fish, and their backbones. Rum, wasn't it? Do you think an otter could have done that?" ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... of Moose Creek and the head of Bonanza Creek is again a watershed between the waters of the Kuskokwim and the waters of the Yukon; for Moose Creek is tributary to the Takotna and Bonanza Creek is tributary to Otter Creek, which is tributary to the Iditarod River. The "summit" is high above timber-line, and when the trail has reached it it does not descend immediately but pursues a hogback ridge for a mile and a half at about the summit level. We passed over it in clear, ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck |
