A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



principal prey, the field voles, are not 

 plentiful either, which may perhaps account 

 for the comparative scarcity of the weasel. 



16. Badger. Meles meles, Linn. 



Bell Meles taxui. 



These interesting animals survive in Berk- 

 shire in considerably greater numbers than 

 is usually supposed. To a great extent they 

 share the earths of the foxes, and do much 

 good by cleaning them out and enlarging 

 them, at times when the earths are tainted 

 with mange. Owing to their quiet nocturnal 

 habits they escape notice. But the occasional 

 surprise of one in a cornfield, or the discovery 

 of their residence close to a house, reveals the 

 fact that they have lived for years where 

 their presence was not suspected. The 

 writer found a dead one in Wittenham 

 Wood in 1896. Another had an earth in 

 the banks of Ginge Brook, near Lockinge. 

 In Sparsholt wilderness (Colonel Hippisley) 

 the keeper climbed a tree to watch the fox 

 cubs come out, and saw two badgers emerge 

 from an old earth. There are badger earths 

 in Bear Wood, near the White Horse, and 

 some were believed to live down in the vale 

 at Sparsholt Copse. There were also earths 

 at Lambourn Woodlands, and probably in 

 the Kennet valley. The hounds not infre- 

 quently find and kill a badger when drawing 

 in thorn cover or furze brake. A badger, 

 or perhaps more than one, is known to fre- 

 quent a meadow below East Hendred Rec- 

 tory. The vast areas of downland, now 

 almost deserted and turned into grass, between 

 Woolley and the Wiltshire border, and on 

 both sides of the Upper Lambourn valley, 

 probably abound in badgers at the present 

 time, for no one interferes with them in any 

 way. An eccentric but sporting character 

 who resided at Dorchester, on the Oxford- 



shire side of the Thames, appeared at a local 

 festival in which there was a procession in 

 costume, with himself and his pony entirely 

 covered with badger skins, it having been one 

 of his amusements to dig them out, with the 

 aid of terriers who showed which way the hole 

 turned by their incessant barking. 



17. Otter. Lutra lutra, Linn. 



Bell Lutra vulgaris. 



The otter is also common in the county on 

 the side bounded by the Thames. This river 

 and its tributaries are greatly frequented by 

 the otters, which either lie in the withy beds, 

 or on the crowns or under the roots of the in- 

 numerable pollard willows. Their principal 

 food among the fish are chub and eels, though 

 they also feed largely on frogs, caught in the 

 wet grass and in the ditches. Local riverside 

 persons make a practice of finding out the 

 trees in which the otters live, when the grass 

 is long and track them in the mornings. The 

 poor animal is then trapped in a gin, and 

 the body taken round and exhibited, as it is 

 supposed, in the interest of fishermen. It is 

 afterwards sold to be stuffed, or it is raffled for 

 in some riverside inn. Otters recently took up 

 theirabodein the ballast holes near the railway 

 between Steventon and Wantage, and then, 

 working up the brook, discovered a series of 

 trout pools made some three miles off in 

 Betterton Glen above Lockinge House. They 

 killed nearly all the trout, and could not be 

 caught, though as many as fourteen traps were 

 set at one time. One of these otters, when 

 crossing the line, was killed by a train. Some 

 are said to have been seen at the heads of brooks 

 quite deep among the downs. Mr. A. H. 

 Cocks caught an otter by hand in the Thames 

 above Bisham in 1873 and kept it in confine- 

 ment until 1878, when it was killed by another 

 otter. 



RODENTIA 



18. Squirrel. Sciurus leucourus, Kerr. 



Bell SCIUTUS vulgaris. 



Berkshire squirrels must represent a large 

 part of the population of these pretty little 

 rodents existing in the home counties. Wind- 

 sor Great Park and the woods of Virginia 

 Water are full of them. And they are very 

 numerous all through the woodland part of 

 the downs, at Catmore, Woolley, and Ilsley, 

 up the Kennet valley, as well as above Lock- 

 inge, and in the woods by the Thames. There 

 is also a race of garden squirrels, which keep 

 to isolated country house gardens, and often 

 become very tame. Some of these, in the 



garden of" the late Mr. C. Provis at Kingston 

 Lisle, were almost domesticated, and used to 

 climb the ivy regularly to be fed at an upper 

 window. The great enemies of these garden 

 squirrels are the cats, which watch at the foot 

 of the trees and kill all the young ones when 

 they descend to the ground. 



19. Dormouse. Muscardinus avellanarius, 

 Linn. 



Bell Myoxus avellanarius. 

 The woodmen of the downs call these 

 ' sleep-mice.' They are not uncommon in 

 the woods round Lilley, Catmore and Fawley, 



170 



