44 THE MAMMALS, REPTILES, AND FISHES OF ESSEX. 



appearance may be accounted for, not by the increased value 

 of the coarse fish upon which it subsists, so much as the 

 comparative ease with which it may be taken in a steel trap, 

 and ultimately converted into a " specimen " to adorn the 

 hall wall a horrible " stuffed " effigy of its former graceful 

 self. One cannot sufficiently regret the constantly-recurring 

 notices in the public prints of Otters having been shot. Yet 

 these notices prove that the animal is now to be found all 

 over the county, and the very frequency of the announce- 

 ments shows it to be present in greater numbers than at 

 one time. It is possible that it is not now diminishing in 

 number, for the capture of Otters is reported not only from 

 the rivers but also from the reeds and sedges of the marshes, 

 where they had not been seen for years. In the Stour, 

 Chelmer, Blackwater, and Lea, Otters occur frequently. 



The Rev. W. B. Daniel in his Rural Sports (1812, vol. i., p. 

 620) says that a gigantic Otter, weighing upwards of forty 

 pounds, was snared in October, 1794, in the River Lea, 

 between Ware and Hertford. He also mentions (pp. cit., 

 p. 631) nine killed in one day in the frozen " fleets " of Fobbing 

 Marshes. Mr. Arthur Fitch, of Wixoe, shot two females in 

 the Stour on 24th December, 1888; and Mr. E. A. Fitch 

 reports (Essex Nat., vol. i., p. 105) quite a number from the 

 neighbourhood of Maldon, both in the Chelmer and Black- 

 water rivers. Others at Rayne, Sturmer, and Baythorne End 

 are also noted (ibid, 280). 



Mr. French relates that a mother and two young Otters 

 were taken alive in the Chelmer at Felstead, in February 

 1891. They were returned to the river (ibid, vol. v., p. 73). 



In August 1891, a young female was caught alive in the 

 Tendring Hall Brook, and was forwarded to the Zoological 

 Gardens (Essex County Chronicle, August I4th, 1891). At the 

 end of the following November (ibid, Dec. 4th), a male Otter, 



