The common otter (_Lutra Californica_) abounds in the tidal portions of the rivers along this coast. Two Indians, whom I know, shot six in an hour or two among the rocks bordering a little cove some eight miles north of the Yaquina, into which a little river empties itself. The skins are not quite so large as those of the English otter, but the fur is valuable. The mink (_Putorius vison_) resembles the polecat, but is nearly twice as large, with nearly black fur; it frequents the borders of the streams, and takes to the water with the greatest readiness. We have rabbits in Oregon (_Lepus Washingtonii_) not much more than half the size of the common rabbit of Europe, but similar in habits and place of residence. It is on these that the mink chiefly preys. I was walking my horse along a quiet stretch of sandy road, between thick bushes, returning from the Yaquina one day in summer, when a rabbit darted out before my horse and down the road for a hundred yards as hard as he could go; then into the bushes, then back into the road, and up the other side, close to me, evidently in the greatest fear. I stopped to see. Presently, a mink came out where poor Bunny first appeared--nose to the ground, and hunting like a ferret. He followed the rabbit's track step by step down the road, into the bushes, back again close to me, then into the brush; and then out came poor rabbit again, the heart gone out of him. Stopping an instant, then going on a few steps, stopping again, and at last, trembling, he bunched himself into his smallest compass in the middle of the road, and there awaited his fate. Not losing one twist or turn, patient, fierce, inexorable, the enemy followed, not raising his nose from the trail till he was almost on his prey. Then a quick bound; the rabbit was seized by the head, almost without a struggle, and dragged nearly unresisting into the bushes down toward the river's edge, while I passed on, musing on the points of resemblance between cousins on opposite sides of the world. Fortunately, these rabbits are very scarce. They are hardly seen in the valley; they live solely in the woods, never in or about the cultivated ground. CHAPTER VII. Birds in Oregon--Lark--Quail--Grouse--Ruffed grouse--Wild-geese-- Manoeuvres in the air--Wild-ducks--Mallard--Teal--Pintail--Wheat-duck --Black duck--Wood-duck--Snipe--Flight-shooting--Stewart's Slough-- Bitterns--Eagles--Hawks--Horned owls--Woodpeckers--Blue-jays--Canaries --The canary that had seen the world--Blue-birds--Bullfinches-- Snow-bunting--Humming-birds at home. I have read comments on the scarcity of birds in America. This may be true in some parts; here, in Oregon, we have abundance, except of singing-birds. Of these last the meadow-lark is almost the sole example; and his song, in its fragmentary notes and minor key, does not even remind one distantly of his English cousin, who always seems to express by his gush of complete and perfect melody the joy that fills his being: