86 NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



assured them protection and strict preservation." Mr. Morris subsequently 

 writes, under date May 26th, that — " I have heard from the owner of the covert 

 in which the badgers had made their earth that out of the eleven badgers nine 

 were saved ; six are hoped to be safe in another part of Essex, to which they were 

 deported to coverts where their services were required to construct earths for 

 foxes ; two came to grief, one by natural causes, the other through misadventure, 

 i.e., entanglement in a poacher's snare ; the remainder were relegated to another 

 county. I ask the favour of this explanation for two reasons, to allay the 

 apprehension that the}' were destroyed, and to be able to state that the owner of 

 the wood was too good a sportsman to allow them to be slaughtered." 



Otter Notes. — The following records of the destruction of otters in Essex 

 have appeared in the local papers. It appears to be futile to remonstrate against 

 the senseless and wicked attempt to exterminate this most interesting animal. 



Oiter at Heybridge. — "On January 15th, Mr. James Woodcraft, of Hey- 

 bridge Basin, shot a very fine female otter, on the bank of the Chelmer and 

 Blackwater canal, near the Basin. The animal measured 3 ft. 7 in. from 

 the nose to the tip of the tail, and weighed 13 lbs. The coat was in splendid 

 condition." 



Otter at West Berghoit. — "On Thursday afternoon, January iith, while 

 Mr. A. E. Diss and Mr. W. H. Wythe were up the river wild fowl shooting, 

 they managed to secure a male otter." 



Otters m the Blackwater, near Langford, — " A number of otters have made 

 their appearance in the Blackwater, at Langford, since the London Anglers' 

 Association restocked their private water there with two tons of fish. 

 Remains of fish have frequently beea discovered on the banks, and three 

 otters have recently been shot. The last one was killed on Sunday, Feb- 

 ruary 4th, and was subsequently exhibited at a committee meeting of the 

 Association, held at Foresters' Hall, Clerkenwell." 



An Otter thirteen miles from a river. — " In the early part of April, a 

 labourer on the Fanton Hall estate, North Benfleet, saw what he took to be 

 a fox run into a drain urder a field gateway. He immediately informed Mr. 

 W. Butcher, bailiff to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to whom the property 

 belongs. Mr. B tcher at once proceeded to dig it out, and after some three 

 hours' digging got down to the drain, which was covered in with timber slabs ; 

 but another hour and a half elapsed before he was able to capture the animal, 

 which he did by passing a workman's waist-strap over its head. He had 

 never before seen an otter (for so it turned out to be, a female, weighing 

 14^ lb.), and had no notion of what animal he had caught. It is a mystery 

 what the otter was there for, as there is an entire absence in the neighbour- 

 hood of anything in the shape of otter's food. The nearest river is the 

 Chelmer, thirteen miles away. It is supposed that the animal had been 

 disturbed by a shooting party." 



Death of a Horse from Yew Poisoning. — " On Wednesday afternoon, 

 February 7th, Mr. H. J. Hutson, Maldon, had a horse die from eating some yew 

 boughs, which, it is said, had been gathered by the borough road men, and thrown 

 on a rubbish heap. The animal reached over the fence of the field in which it 

 was, and picked them up and ate them, dying shortly afterwards." — " Essex 

 County Standard." 



Rough-Legged Buzzard in Essex. — "A rough-legged buzzard QArc/ii- 

 biiteo lagopus') has recently been trapped at Hatfield Peverel while feeding on a 

 pheasant." — "Essex County Chronicle," January 25th, 1894. 



A Travelling Sparrow's Nest.— "A sparrow's nest, containing five eggs, 

 was the other day discovered between the Westinghouse brake of one of the 

 London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway Company's carriages and the bottom of 



