The semi-domesticated otter above referred to, after leading a not unuseful life for a year or two under the careful and always kindly superintendence of its intelligent owner, managed at last somehow to break its chain and escape, and was never more seen or heard of. The only other curious thing about this animal that we can recollect was his deadly aversion to every feathered creature that came near him. Whether goose or duck, barn-door fowl or pigeon, he seemed to detest them all, and would readily, and with every sign of anger, kill such as he could get hold of, not to eat them, observe, for that he was never known to do, but just because he disliked them. To all other animals he could be easily reconciled, and was on good and even friendly terms with all the dogs, cats, and pigs about the place, particularly manifesting his love for his stable companions, the horses, by whining in his strange fashion and straining on his chain to the utmost, as if he would fain welcome them with a caress, when after a day's work in the fields they returned to the stable of an evening. We are not aware that, except milk, which it would readily lap and seemed to enjoy, this otter was ever known to touch anything in the shape of food except its natural fish diet. In the old Sgeulachdan, or fireside tales of the ancient Highlanders, we frequently meet with the "dun otter" or dobhran donn, as one of the dramatis personæ. He is generally introduced to us under an amiable character, rescuing neglected merit from obscurity, relieving distressed damsels, or succouring the widow and orphans with bountiful supplies of silvery fish from the tarn amongst the mountains, or the eddying pool beneath the cascade in the glen. The amiable and friendly otter sometimes turns out to be an enchanted prince, who, timeously released from the spell that has doomed him to amphibious habits and quadrupedal form, assumes his proper shape, and marries the always virtuous and beautiful, though frequently humble, heroine of the tale. In the Hebrides to this day the otter is looked upon with some degree of superstitious reverence, and a bit of otter skin worn by way of charm is regarded as an antidote against infection in fever and small-pox, a preservative from death by drowning, and of singular efficacy in bringing the labours of parturition to a happy issue. A mole on a person's skin, whatever its place or proportions, is in the Hebrides never reckoned a deformity. It is regarded rather as a "beauty spot" than otherwise, and believed to betoken a long life and good luck to the fortunate possessor. In the West Highlands and Hebrides such a mark on the skin is called a ball-dobhrain, an otter mark or otter spot, and is no more accounted a blemish or deformity than was the mole on the right lip of Dulcinea del Toboso by Don Quixote, though it looked "like a whisker, and had seven or eight red hairs in it above a span long!" In some places a piece of otter skin placed on