172 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, shall be deemed to be 
offences of the same nature and liable to the same punishments as 
if they had been committed upon any land in the United Kingdom, 
and may be dealt with, inquired of, tried, and determined in any 
county or place in the United Kingdom in which the offender 
shall be apprehended or be in custody, in the same manner in all 
respects as if they had been actually committed in that county or 
place; and in any information or conviction for any such offence 
the offence may be averred to have been committed “on the high 
seas;” and in Scotland any offence committed against this Act 
on the sea coast, or at sea beyond the ordinary jurisdiction of any 
sheriff or justice of the peace, shall be held to have been com- 
mitted in any county abutting on such sea coast, or adjoining such 
sea, and may be tried and punished accordingly. 
7. Where any offence under this Act is committed in or upon 
any waters forming the boundary between any two counties, 
districts of quarter sessions or petty sessions, such offence may be 
prosecuted before any justice or justices of the peace or sheriff in 
either of such counties or districts. 
a, 
OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
Beavers IN SipeRta.—The Beaver which, some centuries ago, was so 
numerous in Russia and Western Siberia, and which was supposed to 
have totally disappeared from both countries, continues to exist on the 
rivulet Pelyin. M. Poliakoff has procured from an ostyack on the Obi five 
skins of these animals killed last year, and he has engaged a hunter to 
procure this winter complete specimens for the Museum of the St. Peters- 
burg Academy. No farther back than a century ago the Beaver was 
common on one of the affluents of the Irtysh, Bobrofka, but it has now 
totally disappeared from the locality, the last colony existing probably on 
the Pelyin.—‘ Nature,’ 18th January, 1877. 
On THE BREEDING oF THE Orrer.—lI am very glad to see that the 
breeding of the Otter is attracting the attention of your correspondents, 
and trust the result may be something more definite than the stereotyped 
“three to five young ones in March or April.” I have long paid great atten- 
tion to the habits of the Otter in the county of Norfolk, and so far as I have 
been able to ascertain with certainty, the young ones are almost invariably 
born in the dead months of the year. I read with interest Mr. A. H. 
Cocks’ note on the breeding of the Otter (p. 100), but cannot agree with 
