Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 6 (formerly Chapter 8), Mijbil the Otter, is an autobiographical account by Scottish naturalist Gavin Maxwell (Ring of Bright Water) describing how he adopted an otter from the Tigris marshes in Iraq in 1956, named a previously unknown subspecies (Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli), and flew him from Basra to London and Camusfeàrna. The PDF also includes Carl Sandburg’s six-line poem Fog.
What Class 10 English (First Flight) Chapter 6 Covers
Prose: Mijbil the Otter (Gavin Maxwell) recounts how Maxwell decided at Camusfeàrna in the West Highlands of Scotland to keep an otter instead of a dog after his dog Jonnie died. In Basra, two Arabs deliver a sack containing a mud-coated otter (Mijbil) that resembles a ‘very small, medievally conceived, dragon’. After 24 hours of aloofness, Mijbil bonds with Maxwell, goes wild with joy splashing water in the bathroom (and turning the tap on himself within two days), invents ping-pong ball games on a damaged suitcase, and endures a chaotic flight from Basra to Paris and London before baffling Londoners who guess he is a baby seal, squirrel, walrus, hippo, beaver, bear cub, leopard or brontosaur (with a labourer asking, ‘Here, Mister — what is that supposed to be?’).
Poem: Fog (Carl Sandburg) in just six lines of free verse, compares the silent, stealthy arrival of fog over harbour and city to a cat coming on ‘little cat feet’, sitting looking over harbour and city ‘on silent haunches’ and then moving on.
Exercises in Chapter 6
- Oral Comprehension Check & Thinking about the Text ask what ‘experiment’ Maxwell thought Camusfeàrna would be suitable for, why the otter was named ‘Maxwell’s otter’, how Mijbil spent his time in the bathroom and with rubber balls/marbles, what happened when the box was opened on the aircraft, and what guesses the Londoners made about what Mij was.
Read Class 10 English (First Flight) Chapter 6 Online
More Chapters
- Previous: Chapter 5: Glimpses of India (with Poem: The Trees)
- Next: Chapter 7: Madam Rides the Bus (with Poem: The Tale of Custard the Dragon)
- Workbook companion: Words and Expressions II Unit 6: Mijbil the Otter
- All English (First Flight) chapters and the other Class 10 books: Class 10 NCERT books 2026-27
- All Class 1 to 12 NCERT Textbooks: NCERT Books PDF (Class 1–12)
- Every book chapter by chapter: NCERT chapter wise PDF
FAQ
Why was the otter named ‘Maxwell’s otter’?
Mijbil belonged to a race of otters previously unknown to science that inhabited the Tigris marshes in Iraq. Zoologists christened this subspecies Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli, or Maxwell’s otter, after Gavin Maxwell.
What characteristics of an otter’s behaviour towards water does Maxwell describe?
Maxwell notes that for an otter, water must be kept on the move and made to do things; if left static in a bowl or bath, it is wasted and provoking. Mijbil went wild with joy in the bathtub, plunging, rolling and shooting up and down its length until every drop was splashed and sloshed onto the floor.