n6 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



wheel to and fro, and once now and then a nighthawk 

 will throw himself through the air with uncertain flight, 

 his motions scarcely to be followed, as darkness falls. 

 Am I mistaken, or are kingfishers less numerous than 

 they were only a few seasons since ? Then I saw them, 

 now I do not. Long-continued and severe frosts are 

 very fatal to these birds ; they die on the perch. 



And may I say a word for the Thames otter ? The 

 list of really wild animals now existing in the home 

 counties is so very, very short, that the extermination of 

 one of them seems a serious loss. Every effort is made 

 to exterminate the otter. No sooner does one venture 

 down the river than traps, gins, nets, dogs, prongs, brick- 

 bats, every species of missile, all the artillery of vulgar 

 destruction, are brought against its devoted head. Un- 

 less my memory serves me wrong, one of these creatures 

 caught in a trap not long since was hammered to death 

 with a shovel or a pitchfork. 



Now the river fox is, we know, extremely destructive to 

 fish, but what are a basketful of " bait" compared to one 

 otter ? The latter will certainly never be numerous, for 

 the moment they become so, otter-hounds would be em- 

 ployed, and then we should see some sport. Londoners, 

 I think, scarcely recognise the fact that the otter is one 

 of the last links between the wild past of ancient England 

 and the present days of high civilisation. 



The beaver is gone, but the otter remains, and comes 

 so near the mighty City as just the other side of the well- 

 known Lock, the portal through which a thousand boats 

 at holiday time convey men and women to breathe pure 

 air. The porpoise, and even the seal, it is said, ven- 

 tures to Westminster sometimes ; the otter to Kingston. 

 Thus, the sea sends its denizens past the vast multi- 

 tude that surges over the City bridges, and the last 



