sect, he replied, "No, no!--I once threw a quarto at a
skunk, and got the worst of it. I shall not repeat such folly."

"In the year 1749," says Kahn, "one of these animals came near the farm
where I lived. It was in winter time, during the night; and the dogs
that were on watch pursued it for some time, until it discharged
against them. Although I was in a bed at some distance from the scene
of action, I thought I should have been suffocated, and the cows and
oxen, by their lowing, showed how much they were affected by the
stench.

"About the end of the same year, another of these animals crept into
our cellar, but did not exhale the smallest scent when undisturbed. A
foolish woman, however, who perceived it one night by the shining of
its eyes, killed it, and at that moment the fetid odor began to spread.
The cellar was filled with it to such a degree that the woman kept her
bed for several days; and all the bread, meat, and other provisions
that were kept there, were so infected, that they were obliged to be
thrown out of doors."

THE OTTER.

The otter is a native of the greater part of Europe and America. Its
principal food being fish, it makes its habitation on the banks of
rivers, where it burrows to some depth.

_Anecdotes._--The females produce from four to five at a birth. Their
parental affection is so powerful, that they will frequently suffer
themselves to be killed rather than quit their progeny; and this has
frequently been the occasion of their losing their lives, when they
might, otherwise, have escaped. Professor Steller says, "Often have I
spared the lives of the female otters, whose young ones I took away.
They expressed their sorrow by crying like human beings, and followed
me as I was carrying off their young ones, which called to them for
aid, with a tone of voice which very much resembled the wailing of
children. When I sat down in the snow, they came quite close to me, and
attempted to carry off their young. On one occasion, when I had
deprived an otter of her progeny, I returned to the place eight days
after, and found the female sitting by the river, listless and
desponding; she suffered me to kill her on the spot without making any
attempt to escape. On skinning her, I found she was quite wasted away,
from sorrow for the loss of her young. Another time I saw, at some
distance from me, an old female otter sleeping by the side of a young
one, about a year old. As soon as the mother perce