60 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
cimens have been captured on the Teme^ liear 
Cotheridge. The otter is also found in the Ledden^ 
and in the brooks about Crowle^ but not, I believe, in 
the Severn. The badger, Metes taxus, is occasionally 
met with in the Trench Woods, and in wild sandy 
places, but is uncommon. The weasel, Mu stela, 
vulgaris, and stoat, M. erminea, are not uncommon, 
and the latter occasionally occurs in its pretty winter 
dress of pure white with black-tipped tail, when it is 
called the ermine. The fitchet or foumart, M. puto- 
rius, pertinaciously continues a precarious existence, 
though destroyed by all gamekeepers without mercy. 
The hare, Lepus timidus, and rabbit, L. cuniculus, are 
common ; but the elegant squirrel, Sciurus vul- 
garis, is now seldom seen except in sequestered 
woody spots. Some years ago when Oldfield Com- 
mon, near Ombersley, was covered with chesnut 
trees, the squirrels were very numerous there, and 
might be seen in troops, in the Autumn ; but the 
chesnuts having been cut down, and the common 
enclosed — 
" The squirrel has fled to another retreat, 
Where the hazels atford him a screen from the heat." 
The urchin, or hedgehog, Erinaceus europceus, 
an innocent object of dread by the country people on 
account of its supposed attacks on the cattle, and 
robbing them of their milk, though often persecuted, 
maintains its ground ; and the mole, Talpa europcea, 
makes itself known everywhere by its mining opera- 
tions, even on Malvern Hills, and in meadows close 
to the Severn, where it might be supposed the floods 
