“Suddenly Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, and grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two Stock Doves, nine Mice, three Guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left them there to settle themselves and make music. He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the noise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: and yet it was not a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and then it joined again; and all the while the noise came out of it louder and louder. “Tom asked the Dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with his short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards away. So he took the neatest little header into the water, and started off to see for himself; and, when he came near, the ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that ever was seen. And if you don’t believe me, you may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid that you won’t see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery’s Moor, and watch by the great withy pollard which hangs over the back-water, where the Otters breed sometimes), and then say, if Otters at play in the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you ever saw.” The Otter makes a sort of nest in hollows in the banks of the river in which it lives, but does not, as is sometimes stated, construct complicated burrows: its claws, indeed, are too weak for any such work. It usually confines itself to rivers, but is sometimes found on the sea-shore. Otter hunting was formerly a very favourite sport. It was conducted with a special breed of Dogs--the Otter-hound--(see p. 141), and the spear was used for killing the animal when brought to bay.