A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



been taken by a ratcatcher at Kirton Hall. 

 Mr. Levett has been told badgers used to 

 breed at Fagbury CliSs at Walton and Trim- 

 ley. The three localities last named are 

 situated in a rather isolated part of the county, 

 lying between the rivers Orwell and Deben. 

 In the same publication, under date 4 May 

 1 90 1, Mr. T. W. Thurston refers to one of 

 these animals having been caught at Norton 

 near Bury St. Edmunds, about four or five 

 years previous to that time. Mr. T. E. 

 Gunn of Norwich in the Zoologist of 1869, p. 

 1926, records the capture of a female and two 

 cubs in SutFolk, close to the Norfolk boundary, 

 in 1865. Mr. C. Whiting, in a letter to Mr. 

 H. Miller of Ipswich, gives an account of a 

 curious capture of one of these animals about 

 the year 1865 or 1866 on the Dial farm, Cod- 

 denham, by a man named Jessop. He had 

 shot at and wounded a rabbit which his dog, 

 as he thought, had followed to a hole. Reach- 

 ing in with his arm, he pulled out a badger, 

 which fortunately did not bite him. Having 

 somehow managed to get a wire snare over 

 its leg, he drew it into a sack and secured it. 

 He kept it some little time shut up in a shed, 

 but it afterwards escaped. About a week or 

 ten days after this, a badger (doubtless the same 

 animal) was captured close by and sold to a 

 man living near Chelmsford. About the 

 year 1885 or 1886 a male badger was un- 

 fortunately destroyed at Chillesford, where it 

 had first been noticed drinking at a pond in 

 the village. This, there is little doubt, was 

 one which had made its escape two or three 

 years before from Blaxhall, about four miles 

 distant, and which came originally from 

 Oxfordshire. Since its escape it had lived for 

 a time in a rabbits' burrow in that parish. 

 A badger caught at Stratford St. Andrew by 

 a man named Cuthbert was sent to Mr. 

 Asten, taxidermist at Woodbridge, in May 

 1 89 1. Mr. W. M. Crowfoot of Beccles, in 

 a letter to the writer, states that the last 

 badger he has heard of in his district was dug 

 alive out of a burrow in a small plantation at 

 Carlton Colville, known as the ' Grove.' 

 After having been exhibited in the neigbour- 

 hood it was killed and stuffed, and was pur- 

 chased in 1894 by a gentleman living at 

 Lowestoft. The last Suffolk badger of which 

 I can find any notice is one killed in the Cliff 

 Hill Wood on the Sudbourne estate, on I 

 March 1895, recorded by Mr. S. O. Hey- 

 wood of Glevering Hall, in the East Anglian 

 Miscellany of 9 March 1901. It is unaccount- 

 able that an interesting and inoffensive animal 

 like the present species, well known to do 

 little harm to game, should almost invariably 

 be killed wherever it makes its appearance. 



instead of being welcomed and protected. It 

 does excellent service in searching out and 

 destroying wasps' nests. For a most enter- 

 taining account of the successful introduction 

 and establishment of a colony of badgers by a 

 gentleman in Leicestershire, see the Zoologist 

 of 1888, p. 6. Since writing the above I 

 have received a letter from Mr. C. H. Hill, 

 gamekeeper (to whom I had been kindly 

 referred by Mr. Laver of Colchester). This 

 man lately lived at Stanway in Essex, where 

 a few badgers are still, I believe, in existence. 

 The following is an extract : ' I have seen 

 their work in the parish of Sproughton. They 

 (drew) an earth in the latter part of March 

 in a hedge-row bank upon the Valley farm,. 

 I believe for young. Unfortunately the hedge 

 was cut down and the earth exposed, causing 

 them to forsake it. I have not the slightest 

 doubt that it was done by badgers, as I have 

 seen their work at Stanway Hall. I have 

 not heard of any being turned down here.' 



Tidings have just arrived of the capture 

 during the present year of one of these 

 animals in this county. In a letter from Mr. 

 A. E. Elliott, Estate Office, Elveden, for- 

 warded by the Rev. J. G. Tuck, mention is 

 made of a badger caught last January in a 

 belt called 'Napthens' in that parish. It was 

 a fine male measuring 3 feet 9 inches in 

 length. 



19. Otter. Lutra lutra, Linn. 

 Bell — Lutra vulgaris. 

 For the last thirty years or so the number 

 of otters frequenting the rivers and streams of 

 this county, in spite of the treatment they 

 generally receive, is greater than has previ- 

 ously been the case for a considerable period. 

 The Messrs. Paget, writing of the Yarmouth 

 district in 1834, refer to this species as 'now 

 seldom seen on any of the broads, where it 

 was once not uncommon,' and up to more 

 recent times it has been considered a rare 

 animal in Suffolk. At present however so 

 many instances of the capture or wanton 

 destruction by gun, trap or other means, of 

 this interesting and comparatively harmless 

 animal annually come to light, that it would 

 be difficult as well as unnecessary to enumerate 

 them. From the Waveney and Little Ouse 

 in the north to the Stour on the southern 

 boundary, there are itw streams that are not 

 occasionally visited by this nocturnal wan- 

 derer. In the extensive marshes near the 

 coast and the low meadows of the river valleys 

 otters hunt the ditches for eels, frogs, fresh- 

 water mussels {Anodonta cygnea), and coarse fish, 

 lying up temporarily in reed beds, alder cars 

 or any suitable retreat they can find. The 



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