The Open Air 



admitted, was a true sportsman, walked three thou- 

 sand miles to see an otter. That was a different 

 spirit, was it not ? 



That is the spirit in which the otter in the Thames 

 should be regarded. Those who offer money rewards 

 for killing Thames otters ought to be looked on as 

 those who would offer rewards for poisoning foxes in 

 Leicestershire. I suppose we shall not see the ospreys 

 again ; but I should like to. Again, on the other side 

 of the boundary, in the tidal waters, the same sort of 

 ravenous destruction is carried on against everything 

 that ventures up. A short time ago a porpoise came 

 up to Mortlake; now, just think, a porpoise up 

 from the great sea that sea to which Londoners rush 

 with such joy past Gravesend, past Greenwich, past 

 the Tower, under London Bridge, past Westminster 

 and the Houses of Parliament, right up to Mortlake. 

 It is really a wonderful thing that a denizen of the 

 sea, so large and interesting as a porpoise, should 

 come right through the vast City of London. In an 

 aquarium, people would go to see it and admire it, 

 and take their children to see it. What happened? 

 Some one hastened out in a boat, armed with a gun 

 or a rifle, and occupied himself with shooting at it. 

 He did not succeed in killing it, but it was wounded. 

 Some difference here to the spirit of John Russell. 

 If I may be permitted to express an opinion, I think 

 that there is not a single creature, from the sand- 

 marten and the black-headed bunting to the broad- 

 winged heron, from the water-vole to the otter, from 

 the minnow on one side of the tidal boundary to the 

 porpoise on the other big and little, beasts and birds 

 (of prey or not) that should not be encouraged and 

 protected on this beautiful river, morally the property 

 of the greatest city in the world. 



114 



