Ingham : Eurhynchium myosuroides at Kirkdale. 



269 



his cunning and strength, no match for his natural enemy, 

 the otter. 



One afternoon in the early winter I noticed the spoor of 

 this mighty swimmer on the wet mud by the beck, and followed 

 it for two miles without result. The very next morning 

 I suddenly started one feeding - by the side of a long- pool, and 

 chased it up and down till I lost all track of it, for the mere 

 pleasure of seeing- the air bubbles rise as it swam under water. 

 The next day, passing the lair on my way to shoot ducks, 1 found 

 the pike lying dead on the turf on the bray or bank top, with its 

 head and shoulders eaten by an otter. By the next morning- a 

 fox had disposed of the rest of the fish, except the backbone, as 

 I could see by the tracks on the sand, where I had carefully laid 

 it for the purpose. This was the only time to my knowledge 

 when an otter or otters visited the neighbourhood. 



A beck is a glorious study for one who has the eyes to see, 

 the mind to learn, and, most important of all, the heart to 

 interpret its subtle phases and changes with the seasons. 

 It brings teeming life and plenty into what would be otherwise a 

 more or less desolate wilderness as far as the naturalist is 

 concerned. Wherever one exists in its pristine purity, take 

 camera, fieldglass, telescope, and notebook, and force its secrets, 

 many of which are still mysteries to the wisest. It may be a 

 long study ere you know it well, to say nothing of thoroughly, 

 with its flowers, beasts, birds and fishes, disregarding its more 

 minute bank and watery inhabitants. Do not be discouraged at 

 the time it will take, no good work is done in a short period. 

 Charles Darwin even gave nine years to the study of the barnacles, 

 and that special work made him the great, painstaking man he 

 was. Depend upon it, the lesson a beck, or some such simple 

 study, can teach you will be invaluable as a training in the 

 methods which must be followed in learning the art of accurate 

 observation, and by the time you know your subject by heart, 

 you will appreciate the full value of the minutest detail, and w ill 

 thus be fitted and ready for whatever work comes, even the most 

 delicate scientific inquiry — you will know the value of facts even 

 when you cannot correlate them. 



NOTE— MOSSES. 



Eurhynchium myosuroides var. cavernarum at Kirkdale : a Cor- 

 rection.— The moss mentioned by Mr. Marshall in the Augusl number ol 

 'The Naturalist' as 4 Isothecium viviparum Lindb. var. cavernarum Mel., 

 near the Kirkdale Cave,' ought to be Eurhynchium myosuroides var. 

 cavernarum Mol. — Wm. Ingham, York, joth August 1000. 

 nxx) September 1. 



