352 THE OLD MANOR HOUSE 



gone by, but the murderous gamekeeper will take 

 any amount of pains to dig out and kill the innocent 

 creature; and it is a sport or murder which is 

 annually renewed ; for particular spots have as 

 strange and mysterious an attraction for the badger, 

 as other spots have for the raven. Year by year, 

 you may kill one, and, year by year, another will 

 come from you know not where, and take his 

 place. 



The otter, too, is not unknown at Melcombe. The 

 stream is very small, and there are few fish in it, 

 yet an otter was found and killed, alas! a year 

 or two ago, at Bramblecoombe, close to the favourite 

 station of the solitary heron ; and the footprints of 

 an otter are, at the moment at which I write, to be 

 seen along the bank of the river in the Manor 

 House garden. He is safe enough so long as he 

 stays there ; and those who have sympathised 

 with the appeal which I have made throughout 

 these chapters to landowners and to sportsmen to 

 act upon the maxim of "live and let live," and not 

 recklessly and selfishly to sacrifice all wild life to 

 " sport," may be interested to hear that one of the 

 largest landowners in the neighbourhood of Bing- 

 ham's Melcombe, Mr Everard Hambro, a great 

 sportsman, and one whose estate swarms with game, 



