The Modern Thames 



chased in the days of dim antiquity. What, then, 

 has the otter done ? Has he ravaged the fields ? does 

 he threaten the homesteads ? is he at Temple Bar ? 

 are we to run, as the old song says, from the Dragon ? 

 The fact is, the ravages attributed to the otter are 

 of a local character. They are chiefly committed in 

 those places where fish are more or less confined. If 

 you keep sheep close together in a pen the wolf who 

 leaps the hurdles can kill the flock if he chooses. In 

 narrow waters, and where fish are maintained in 

 quantities out of proportion to extent, an otter can 

 work doleful woe. That is to say, those who want too 

 many fish are those who give the otter his opportunity. 

 In a great river like the Thames a few otters cannot 

 do much or lasting injury except in particular places. 

 The truth is, that the otter is an ornament to the 

 river, and more worthy of preservation than any 

 other creature. He is the last and largest of the wild 

 creatures who once roamed so freely in the forests 

 which enclosed Londinium, that fort in the woods 

 and marshes marshes which to this day, though 

 drained and built over, enwrap the nineteenth-century 

 city in thick mists. The red deer are gone, the boar 

 is gone, the wolf necessarily destroyed the red deer 

 can never again drink at the Thames in the dusk of 

 the evening while our civilisation endures. The otter 

 alone remains the wildest, the most thoroughly 

 self-supporting of all living things left a living link 

 going backto the days of Cassivelaunus. London ought 

 to take the greatest interest in the otters of its river. 

 The shameless way in which every otter that dares 

 to show itself is shot, trapped, beaten to death, and 

 literally battered out of existence, should rouse the 

 indignation of every sportsman and every lover of 

 nature. The late Rev. John Russell, who, it will be 

 113 H 



