"Otter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have since been inclined to think it was in one of the many islands that line that broken coast. We got a very secure berth, having been led to it by a native pilot who boarded us several leagues at sea, and who knew enough English to persuade our captain that he could take us to a point where sea-otter skins might be had for the asking. Nor did the man deceive us, though a more unpromising-looking guide never had charge of smuggling Christians. He carried us into a very small bay, where we found plenty of water, capital holding-ground, and a basin as smooth as a dock. ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... however, went on with vigor. Every beaver, marten, mink, musk-rat, raccoon, lynx, wild-cat, fox, wolverine, otter, badger, or other skin had to be beaten, graded, counted, tallied in the company's book, put into press, and marked for shipment to John Jacob Astor in New York. As there were twelve grades of sable, and eight even of deer, the grading, which ...
— The Black Feather - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... they met not only with plenty of fruits upon the banks of the rivers, but with wild swine in great abundance, of which the Symerons, without difficulty, killed, for the most part, as much as was wanted. One day, however, they found an otter, and were about to dress it; at which Drake expressing his wonder, was asked by Pedro, the chief Symeron: "Are you a man of war and in want, and yet doubt whether this be meat that hath blood in it?" For which Drake in private rebuked ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... playing an interesting game than transacting business. "He could command an army of five hundred thousand men!" exclaimed one of his admirers. That was an erroneous remark. He could have commanded an army of five hundred thousand tea-chests, with a heavy auxiliary force of otter skins and beaver skins. But a commander of men must be superior morally as well as intellectually. He must be able to win the love and excite the enthusiasm of his followers. Astor would have made a splendid commissary-general to the army of Xerxes, but he could no ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... 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 ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... up to her chamber and put on a pelisse of stuff like her gown, lined with canary-colored satin, and a little cap of otter and a great muff which she had fashioned herself out of skins which her brothers had brought home, and took over her arm, since the day was frosty, a long tippet of otter which she could wind round her throat, if need be, and came down all equipped ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... The otter, although not so expert an architect as the beaver, appears to possess more sagacity. A fine one, caught in Scotland, became so tame, that whenever it was alarmed it would spring for protection into the arms ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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, from thence to ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... 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 ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... knives in their sheaths, depended from hooks above them. In one corner stood a harpoon; in another, two or three Indian spears for salmon. The carpetless floor and rude chairs and settles were covered with otter, mink, beaver, and a quantity of valuable seal-skins, with a few larger pelts of the bear and elk. The only attempt at decoration was the displayed wings and breasts of the wood and harlequin duck, the muir, the cormorant, the gull, the gannet, and the femininely delicate half-mourning of petrel ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... my sport," she laughed. "I was after an otter—though you mustn't tell Nasmyth that ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... the loon down into the water in order to bring up some of the old earth; but it was not able to reach the bottom, and, after remaining in the water some time, came up dead. Nanahboozoo then took it, blew upon it, and it came to life again. He next sent the otter, which, also failing to reach the bottom, came up dead, and was restored to life in the same manner as the loon. He then tried the skill of the beaver, but without success. Having failed with all these diving animals, he last of all took the muskrat. ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. 45 Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue 50 That ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Athabasca River has been used only twenty years. Before that time people from the North reached Winnipeg by the Clearwater. Philip is a Loyalist. During the half-breed rebellion of 1885 he carried dispatches to Middleton and Otter, going seventy-five miles one day on foot. He had his horse, "a draught-horse as black as a crow," taken from him twice, got through the lines and stole another, and tells proudly how for his deed of valor he was presented ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... now, after de ice she vent off de lakes. And ve trafel long vays, most far as vhere de Albany she come down in James Bay. Ve vos lookin' for silfer an' copper an' tings like dat. An' dere come one day vhen ve gets awful rough water on a lake and ve get upset. Him Hugo he svim like a otter, he do, but me I svim like a stone. De shore he ban couple hundret yard off, mebbe leetle more. I hold on to de bow and Hugo he grab de stern. So he begin push for shore, svimmin' vid his feet, but ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by the traders, differs considerably from the present worth of the articles it represents; but the Indians are averse to change. Three marten, eight musk-rat, or a single lynx, or wolverene skin, are equivalent to one beaver; a silver fox, white fox, or otter, are reckoned two beavers, and a black fox, or large black bear, are equal to four; a mode of reckoning which has very little connexion with the real value of these different furs in the European market. Neither has any attention been paid to the original cost of ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... 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 when denied admittance threatened ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... water. See how the rat—I mean our common, omnivorous, scavenging, thieving, poaching brown rat—when it lives near a pond or stream, learns to swim and dive as naturally as a duck. Next comes the vole, or water-rat, which will not live away from water. Then there are water shrews, the beaver, otter, duck-billed platypus, and a host of others, not related, just as, among birds, there are water ousels, moorhens, ducks, divers, etc., which have permanently made the water their home and seek their living in it. All ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... beavers built their dams. There were 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, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... site of the present busy town of Chester—and their adventures with the Indians are full of interest. The immense quantities of wild fowl and animal and bird life along the shores astonished them; but what most aroused their cupidity was the enormous supply of furs, especially beaver and otter, that could be obtained from the Indians. Furs became their great, in fact, their only interest in the Delaware. They established forts, one near Cape Henlopen at the mouth of the river, calling ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... doing very well," said Uncle Andy, "if you did ask that one fool question. When we were creeping up on the otter, to try and get a look at them while they were playing, you did very well indeed. You stepped as light as a cat, and that's not easy mind, I tell you, when one's not trained to it. You didn't even breathe too hard—and I know you ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... slowly!) 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 ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... loony habitaw 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 goin' faster ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... his black locks, and a black chain byrnie about his breast. He took the great axe-head also and fitted to it the half of another axe that lay among the weapons. Then he drew out a purse of money and a store of golden rings, and set them in a bag of otter skin, and buckled it about him. But the other goods he wrapped up in skins and hid behind some stones which were at the bottom of the cave—purposing to come another ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... there 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 will make ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... grovellest low before the great * Nor over fording lesser men dost blench Who gildest dross by dirham gathering, * No otter scent disguises carrion stench! ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... him caused him to turn. An otter clambered over the edge of the lake and struck the snow with its tail. Eleven others followed. Each was twice as big as any otter he had ever seen; their chief was four times as big. The eleven sat themselves in a circle ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... 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, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... are the otter or water-dog, the musang and climbing musang, the civet cat, the royal tiger, the spotted black tiger, in whose glossy raven-black coat the characteristic markings are seen in certain lights; the tiger cat, the leopard, the Java cat, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... came, 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 by this time, ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... wilderness of deserted, dimly-lighted streets; but in proportion as he approached the official's quarter of the city, the streets became more lively, more populous, and more brilliantly illuminated. Pedestrians began to appear; handsomely dressed ladies were more frequently encountered; the men had otter skin collars to their coats; peasant waggoners, with their grate-like sledges stuck over with brass-headed nails, became rarer; whilst on the other hand, more and more drivers in red velvet caps, lacquered sledges and bear-skin coats began to appear, and carriages with rich hammer-cloths flew swiftly ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... keeper was his constant attendant. If a hart was to be chased, Herne and his two black hounds of Saint Hubert's breed would hunt him down with marvellous speed; if a wild boar was to be reared, a badger digged out, a fox unkennelled, a marten bayed, or an otter vented, Herne was chosen for the task. No one could fly a falcon so well as Herne—no one could break up a deer so quickly or so skilfully as him. But in proportion as he grew in favour with the king, the young keeper was ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... presently she danced out, leading a band of thirty 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 to weird music while they formed a ring around the fire. There ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... balls of the toes; whereas, in two terriers of distinct sub-breeds, the skin viewed in the same manner was deeply scooped out. In Canada there is a dog which is peculiar to the country and common there, and this has "half-webbed feet and is fond of the water."[79] English otter-hounds are said to have webbed feet: a friend examined for me the feet of two, in comparison {40} with the feet of some harriers and bloodhounds; he found the skin variable in extent in all, but more developed in the otter ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... beetle,[8] prey upon the ova, spawn and young fry; floods also sweep away and leave on banks, or rocks, a considerable quantity of spawn, which of course comes to nothing. Escaping the above perils and causalities, and arrived at maturity, they become the prey and food of the otter and heron, king's fisher, gull, &c., who emulate man in their destructive propensities. The larger fish also prey upon the smaller. Luckily otters are not so numerous in any English river as they used to be. ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... in vain looked about him for such a bazaar as he used to frequent in Regent Street. At last he came upon an elderly, crusty Jew, who sold second-hand articles, and from whom he purchased a dress of Scotch stuff, a large mantle, and a fine otter-skin pelisse, for which he did not hesitate to pay seventy-five pounds. He then returned triumphantly ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... wobbling and jolting along in a compact mass of mild perplexity at this sudden interruption of their never-ending meal, while Austin scampered at their tails, as much excited with the sport as Don Quixote himself when he dispersed the legions of Alifanfaron. Let hare-coursers, otter-hunters, and pigeon-torturers blame him if they choose; the exercise probably did the sheep a vast amount of good, and Austin fully believed that they enjoyed it quite as much as he did. Then suddenly a great calamity befell him. A weakness made itself apparent in his ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... the coffers of a country which was once their own? No— they fight for the privilege of dying where the bones of their ancestors lie buried: and yet we, Christians as we call ourselves, deny them that boon, and drive the lords of the soil into the den of the otter. ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the worst of it,' I went on quick, keeping him hot and not giving him time to think. 'We thought you was from a nice, well-to-do family. Here's Mr. Little Bear, a chief of the Cherokees, entitled to wear nine otter tails on his Sunday blanket, and Professor Binkly, who plays Shakespeare and the banjo, and me, that's got hundreds of dollars in that black tin box in the wagon, and we've got to be careful about the company we keep. That man tells me your folks ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... were formerly so abundant that, according to Lesley, from five hundred to a thousand were sometimes slain at a hunting-match; but the native races would already have been extinguished, had they not been carefully preserved in certain forests. The otter, the marten, and the polecat, were also in sufficient numbers to be pursued for the sake of their fur; but they have now been reduced within very narrow bounds. The wild cat and fox have also been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... fastened round its neck like a ferret, and was attached by it to the bows of a sampan, which was rowed by a woman, while the fisherman, standing on the fore part, gathered in his hands a net, circular in shape and having a hole in the centre large enough to admit the otter. ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... you goin' tew take 'em?" he demanded. "This ain't no jail case. We wants them tried immejiate. Thar ain't no need of lawyers an' jedges tew mix things up. We seed 'em kill th' miner, an' are willin' tew swear tew it, an' that otter be enough tew have 'em danglin' by their necks inside of ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... trees, a land deep and rich, filled with all manner of 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 ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... that ever was a small boy and rejoiced in belly-bumping down some icy hill, on a sled of glorious red, should have a brotherly sympathy for the Otter. ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... hard luck. One got away in the winter after we left, and wasn't caught for a day or two; it was foggy, and that helped him, of course. Then there is otter-hunting in some of the rivers," went on Dennis, tiring of the subject of the convicts. "Oh, it's an awfully fine place! There are wild cattle on the moor too, and they are no end of excitement; they go for you like anything if you rile them. You are ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... now gathered up on the top of a dyke, and with erect ears, looking across the wild like a moss-trooper out on business, keen and fell. She could do everything it became a dog to do, from killing an otter or a polecat, to watching and playing with a baby, and was as docile to her master as she was surly to all else. She was not quarrelsome, but "being in," she would have pleased Polonius as much, as in being "ware of entrance." She ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Una had 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
... after one of our native streams) was a long-bodied, long-haired animal, with a touch of the otter hound in her nature. I got her from Colin Lothian, an old "gaberlunzie" man who travelled our countryside. He gave me the dog when she was a young thing, and he had another of the same litter which followed him wherever he went ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... summit an hermit aged one hundred and forty years, of which he had passed ninety in the island. He had no clothes except his own hair, which was long and white. He was an Irishman named Paul, and had known Patrick. For thirty years he had lived on fish brought him by a beast, presumably an otter, in its fore-paws, along with fuel wherewith to cook it, and which he kindled by striking a flint, and for sixty years upon the water of a spring. He gave them of the water of the spring, and bade them go their way, telling them that in forty days they would keep ...
— Brendan's Fabulous Voyage • John Patrick Crichton Stuart Bute
... 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, ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... passes through it—navigable. The mill streams are Prairie, Honey, Otter, and Sugar creeks, but their waters fail in a dry season. Surface level, or gently undulating, with forest and prairies; soil, rich loam and sand,—first rate. Minerals; gray limestone, freestone, and inexhaustible beds ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... pretty piece of extravagance!" the other exclaimed. "A magnum—to get a couple of glasses out of it; like an otter taking a single bite from a salmon's shoulder. Never mind, old chap; I'm in. I hate champagne at this time of night; but I don't want ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... and the sun was beginning to shine hot. Now she passed over rustic bridges, under posted warnings to drive slow or pay a fine, or through sandy fords across purling streams, hearing the monotone of some unseen mill-dam, or scaring the tall gray crane from his fishing, or the otter from his pranks. Again she went up into leagues of clear pine forest, with stems as straight as lances; meeting now a farmer, and now a school-girl or two, and once a squad of scouts, ill-mounted, worse clad, and yet more sorrily armed; bivouacking with the jolly, tattered ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... enough from any one of your years," said the hedgehog. "Little river-fishes run away from big river-fishes, and big river-fishes run away from bigger river-fishes, and they all run away from the otter." ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... drives Miss Benson to Otter Cliffs, and out on the Cornice Road, about seven days in the week, and gets up sailing-parties and all that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... quadrupeds, as the 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 as it cannot by ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... cruising outside the port, and the Harriet communicated with the commodore. It was ascertained that the sloop Otter was running down to the Cape with despatches on the following day, and Flinders had no difficulty in securing a passage in her. After dining with Rowley he was transferred to the Otter. He was delayed for six weeks at the Cape, but in August embarked ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... sea-otter, John Davies, that destroyed more fish than any sealch upon Ailsa Craig?' exclaimed a third voice. 'I have an old crow to pluck with him, and a pock to ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... nevertheless, well ventilated. As to the beavers, which are endowed, as known, with a most sympathetic character, their astounding dams and villages, in which generations live and die without knowing of any enemies but the otter and man, so wonderfully illustrate what mutual aid can achieve for the security of the species, the development of social habits, and the evolution of intelligence, that they are familiar to all interested in animal life. Let me only remark that with the beavers, ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... Anti-Vivisection meeting in the Queen's Hall in London. I found myself on the platform with fox hunters, tame stag hunters, men and women whose calendar was divided, not by pay days and quarter days, but by seasons for killing animals for sport: the fox, the hare, the otter, the partridge and the rest having each its appointed date for slaughter. The ladies among us wore hats and cloaks and head-dresses obtained by wholesale massacres, ruthless trappings, callous extermination of our fellow creatures. We insisted on our butchers supplying us with white veal, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... in before her, and stood holding up his finger, as if making a signal of silence to some one within. Her ladyship entered, and found herself in the midst of an odd assembly: an eagle, a goat, a dog, an otter, several gold and silver fish in a glass globe, and a white mouse in a cage. The eagle, quick of eye but quiet of demeanour, was perched upon his stand; the otter lay under the table, perfectly harmless; the Angora goat, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... racoonda; but in England they are imported as nutria skins—deriving their appellation, most probably, from some supposed similarity of the animal which produces them, in appearance and habits, to the otter, the Spanish name for which is nutria. Indeed, Molina speaks of the coypou as a species of water rat, of the size and colour ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... the customs of the Dahcotahs, which, however absurd they may appear to us, are held in sacred reverence by them. There are some animals, birds and fishes, that an Indian venerates; and the creature thus sacred, he dare neither kill nor eat. The selection is usually a bear, buffalo, deer, otter, eagle, hawk or snake. One will not eat the right wing of a bird; another dare not eat the left: nor are the women allowed to eat any part that ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... fawns wantoned in the shade beneath, or wild swine munched the acorns. Here were slow sedgy streams, now illumined, as by a ray of light, when some monster of the inland waters flashed along after his scaly prey, or stirred by a sudden plunge as the otter sprang from the bank. Sometimes the brock took an airing abroad, and the wolf came to look after his interests and ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... islands the crows came down for mussels. Moorhens swam in and out among the rushes, water-rats nibbled at the flags, pikes basked at the edge of the weeds, summer-snipes ran along the sand, and doubtless an otter here and there was in concealment. Without the line of the shoals and islets, now that the mallards had flown, there was a solitude of water. It was far too deep for the longest weeds, nothing seemed to exist here. The very water-snails seek the shore, or are drifted ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... existed. The fact is, the larger fish of a trout stream are more like rats in their habits than anything else; they stow themselves away in holes in the bank and all sorts of inconceivable places, and are as invisible by day as the otter itself. ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... next morning he put a saddle on a black horse that his father had, and he took the world for his pillow. When he went on a bit, he fell in with the carcass of a sheep beside the road. And there were a great black dog, a falcon, and an otter, and they were quarrelling over the spoil. So they asked him to divide it for them. He came down off the horse, and he divided the carcass amongst the three, three shares to the dog, two shares ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... removed. Nearly every 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
... 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 ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... not so large, by far, as the lions, but rather larger than a common seal. They have none of that long hair which distinguishes the lion. Theirs is all of an equal length, and finer than that of the lion, something like an otter's, and the general colour is that of an iron-grey. This is the kind which the French call sea-wolfs, and the English seals; they are, however, different from the seals we have in Europe and North America. The lions may, too, without any great impropriety, be called over-grown seals; for they are ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... 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 ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... strangers went down to their canoes and soon came back with an armload of furs—fox-skins, otter-skins, beaver-skins. The chief took some and held them out to Thorfinn and hugged ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall
... farmer, Seth Wright, found among his lambs a young ram with short legs and long body. The farmer kept the ram, reasoning that his short legs would prevent him from leading the flock over the farm-walls and fences. From this ram was descended the breed of ancon, or otter, sheep. Now the stimulus which had excited this variation must have been applied early in embryonic life, or perhaps during the formation or maturing of the germ-cells themselves. Such a variation ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... only of the pure, unmixed Isle-of-Skye dog, or "tassel terrier," as he is sometimes called by rabbit-hunters,—a breed difficult to obtain in perfection, and one which is particularly scarce in this country. The proper game or quarry of this animal is the otter, which he does not hesitate to follow into his very burrow in the river-banks; nor is he afraid to attack one nearly double ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... 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 ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... week was up, we had eight bob-cats and an otter. We packed our traps and skins on the sled, started back, and reached Fort Edward ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... Otter was there, with his father and mother and all his relations even to his third cousins. Bobby Coon was there, and he had brought with him every Coon of his acquaintance who ever fished in the Smiling Pool or along the Laughing Brook. And everybody was looking very solemn, ...
— The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat • Thornton W. Burgess
... certain shiver. The wind went sniffing suspiciously among the spruce branches; a startled bird chirped and whirred away out of their path; the brook roared among the rocks; a big salmon jumped and tumbled back with resounding splash, and jumped again as if the otter were after him. There was a sudden sharp cry, the first and last voice of a hare when the weasel rises up in front of him; then silence, and the fitful rustle of his mother's pads moving steadily, swiftly over dry leaves. And all these ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... 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 evidence ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the woods. Suddenly I heard in this direction a faint regular sound in the water, as if some animal were swimming. I could not see anything, but as the sounds grew stronger I knew that it must be approaching. I did not know much of the aquatic animals in this region; perhaps it might be an otter, a muskrat, I knew not what. But, whatever it was, I wanted to see it, and, putting down my cigar, I slipped softly behind the tree at whose foot I had ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... the otter-trappers found me, Before the break of day, With my dark hair blanched and whitened As the snow in which ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... were, bales of 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
... 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, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... some time he came to a great lake, and 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 he 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, and up a hill ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... become with this circumstance, and so fond was she of fish, that the moment she heard the noise of the mill clapper cease, she used to scamper off to the dam, and, up to her belly in water, continue to catch fish like an otter." ...
— Minnie's Pet Cat • Madeline Leslie
... of man. They are occasionally accompanied by the remains of a Glutton (the Gulo speloeus), which does not appear to be really separable from the existing Wolverine or Glutton of northern regions (the Gulo luscus). In addition, we meet with the bones of the Wolf, Fox, Weasel, Otter, Badger, Wild Cat, Panther, Hyaena, and Lion, &c., together with the extinct Machairodus or "Sabre-toothed Tiger." The only two of these that deserve further mention are the Hyaena and the Lion. The Cave-hyaena (Hyoena speloea, fig. 269) is regarded by ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... first to 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 ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... Fort Clatsop to see the captains. He had on a robe made of two sea-otter skins. The skins were the most beautiful the captains had yet seen. They wanted the chief to sell the robe. He did not want to sell it, as sea-otters are hard to get. They said they would give him anything they had ...
— The Bird-Woman of the Lewis and Clark Expedition • Katherine Chandler
... of the head. Less frequently, four braids were made, one behind and in front of each ear. Sometimes, the hair of the forehead was cut off square, and brushed straight up; and not infrequently it was made into a huge topknot and wound with otter fur. Often a slender lock, wound with brass wire or braided, hung down from one side of the forehead over ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... Sand-grouse and partridge thrive in large 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, ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... 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 ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... round the meadow—at Una's oak by the lower gate, at the line of ash trees that overhang Otter Pool where the mill-stream spills over when the mill does not need it, and at the gnarled old white-thorn where ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... I not give to hear the last discussion of my prospects! I opened the window gently, but just then a carriage covered with luggage came clattering into the court, and out got a traveller wrapped in furs and wearing an otter-skin cap. It was Epinchard; just think, dear, Epinchard arriving from Nice on purpose to vote for me. Good fellow! Then my old master went by, his broad-brimmed hat down over his eyes; he was turning over the copy of 'Without the Veil,' which I gave him, to be used if necessary. ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... exception of the rabbit, all our English animals are found in Norway—the badger, fox, hare, otter, squirrel, hedgehog, polecat, stoat, and the rest of them. But besides these there are little Arctic foxes and Arctic hares, with bluish-grey coats in the summer and snowy-white ones in the winter. This change of colour is a provision ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... got his start as a fur trader. I guess he was about the biggest fur trader that ever was. He was so active that all them animals that wore furs on their backs concluded they might as well give up. I heard one story there about an otter an' a beaver talkin'. Says the otter to the beaver, when he was tellin' the beaver good-by after a visit: 'Farewell, I never expect to see you again, my dear old friend.' 'Don't be too much distressed,' replies the beaver, 'you an' ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... advised to kill his former ram and keep this new one in place of it; the consequence was, the formation of a new breed of sheep, which gradually spread over a considerable part of New England, but the introduction of the Merino has nearly destroyed them again. This new variety was called the Otter, or "Ankon" breed. They are remarkable for the shortness of their legs, and the crookedness of their forelegs, like an elbow. They are much more feeble and much smaller than the common sheep, and less able to break ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... from the river-side, and so refined and smoothed his village plot. He rudely bridged the stream, and drove his team afield into the river meadows, cut the wild grass, and laid bare the homes of beaver, otter, muskrat, and with the whetting of his scythe scared off the deer and bear. He set up a mill, and fields of English grain sprang in the virgin soil. And with his grain he scattered the seeds of the dandelion and the wild trefoil over the meadows, mingling ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Beaver, otter, foxes, bears, and buffaloes were the chief animals that were afterward driven west by the advancing tide of civilization, until the agents of the Missouri and Western Fur Companies were forced to do most of their work in the far west and north-west, where they came in collision with that ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... profitable, also herrings, of which six hundred barrels were once caught in a single haul, off Killisnoo. But the number of canneries on this coast is increasing at a rapid rate, and five or six years hence large fortunes will be a thing of the past. The now priceless sea-otter was once abundant along the south-eastern coast of Alaska, the value of skins taken up to 1890 being thirty-six million dollars, but the wholesale slaughter of this valuable animal by the Russians, and later on by the ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... Iago, Douglas Giffard; Duke of Venice, Charles Harper; Brabantio, Eugene Cosgrove; Cassio, Arnold Rosenfeld; Roderigo, Erwin Moore; Montano, Wilson Portherfield; Lodovico, Henry Geitz; Gratiano, William Fleming; Desdemona, Carrie Whitehill; Emilia, Gussie Rodgers; Bianca, Florence Otter; senators, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... a dwarf named Andvari, who had long lived in the fall in the likeness of a pike, and in which he supplied himself with food. "Our brother," continued Regin, "was named Otr, who often went into the fall in the likeness of an otter. He had caught a salmon, and was sitting on the bank of the river with his eyes shut eating it, when Loki killed him with a stone. The AEsir thought themselves very lucky, and stripped off the otter's skin. That same evening ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson |
