Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 179, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1920 — Mother Otter’s Job. [ARTICLE]

Mother Otter’s Job.

The young otters —blind and downy —are born in a soft-lined nest under the shelter of an inaccessible bank; the mother will at first hardly leave them, save on feverish rushes after the food necessary to keep up the supply of milk. To guard them she sleeps, like many a human mother, with at least one ear awake. When they open their eyed she cautiously carries them to bask for a while in the winter sunshine, for their birthdays are often in January. When they can clamber she teaches them the woodcrafts of the immediate vicinity of the “hover," and then communicates many of the valuable lessons she has learned, sometimes taking occasion to punish the unruly members of the family by biting them.