Quadrupeds. 781 



hardly be young water voles) some small animal which I cannot help 

 thinking must be the water shrew. 



TJie Badger. — The first intimation I received of the existence of 

 the badger in the island was from R. Loe, who informed me, in Fe- 

 bruary, 1843, that in the preceding spring three young badgers were 

 dug out on Grove Farm, in the parish of Brading. On the 10th of 

 March I visited the spot, and at the mouth of a fresh earth, picked 

 up several bristles, thereby satisfying myself that the parents, or at 

 least one or other of them, was still in the neighbourhood. There 

 were several earths in the adjoining hedgerows. Since that time I 

 have, with the assistance of R. Loe, traced the badger in two different 

 parts of Youngwood copse, in the parish of Newchurch, and found 

 earths evidently still inhabited. I have also ascertained, that about 

 seventeen years back, two old badgers and two young ones were de- 

 stroyed on the property of Sir R. Simeon, Bart. The story runs, 

 that a few years previously, certain badgers having been imported for 

 the amusement of sundry humane and polite inhabitants of the town 

 of Newport, did then and there effect their escape, preferring the 

 retirement of the woods to the notoriety of a public baiting. 



TJie Otter still exists, I believe, in the island. The only one I 

 have seen was killed at the head of Shanklin Chine, in September, 

 1839 ; it was an old female : a boy found it sleeping under a bush, 

 and attacked it with the armed toe of his boot ; he ultimately suc- 

 ceeded in killing it, though not before it had inflicted one or two 

 pretty severe bites on his wrist and leg. In the course of his life, 

 R. Loe has killed six, in the Newchurch marshes. One was said to 

 frequent the river Medina, a mile or two above Newport, during the 

 summer of 1839 ; and the absence of trout was attributed to the 

 presence of the otter ; and very correctly, I have no doubt, if the 

 otter Was really there ; for though it certainly is remarkable that so 

 swift a fish should fall a prey to an amphibious quadruped, it is not 

 less true than remarkable that it does so. As a flyfisher, I owe no 

 love to the otter ; and yet, were I the proprietor of a trout stream, I 

 think I could resist the temptation to persecute him, unless I found 

 there was not room for him and me to ply our craft ; in that case I 

 should, I believe, give him notice to quit. 



The Common Weasel is not so common as its congener 



The Stoat, which abounds over the whole island. The number 

 annually trapped at the Hermitage is extraordinary. It is curious 

 that in this southern latitude the stoat sometimes undergoes the w T inter 

 change of colour. I have seen six or seven specimens whose change 



