COMMON OTTER. 
U 
COMjNIOiS' OTTEE. Lutra vulgaris, Erxleben. 
Resident, but rare. — Harley recorded that, in his day, it was occasionally found 
on the banks of the rivers Soar, Trent, and Wreake. He was present at the 
capture of a female Otter and four young ones, in the spring of 1817. The young 
Otters were taken from a rude lair, matted with rushes and flags which the dam 
had carefully conveyed through a hole, and concealed within a decayed pollard 
willow on the banks of the river Soar, near to the upper mills in the parish of 
Loughborough. On being surprised the old Otter fought the Dogs furiously, and 
was with difficulty overcome. The young, which had attained to the size of a large 
Water-Rat, were still blind. 
‘‘ J. B.,” writing in the ‘Leicester Chronicle and Mercury,’ 28th Feb., 1885, 
says : — “ Between sixty and seventy years back. Squire Smith, of Enderby, kept 
a pack of Otter-Hounds. — A large Otter, stuffed and in a case, has been at the 
‘ Narborough Inn ’ for many years past. The late Mr. \Vm. Sansome was 
gamekeeper, and, I believe, shot it.” In 1885 I called at the “ Narborough Inn,” 
when the late Miss Sansome kindly shewed me the above-mentioned specimen, 
large, but wretchedly mounted ; it was shot between fifty and sixty years before. 
The Museum formerly possessed one killed near Enderby, on 28th Sept., 1849. 
IMr. Thomas Woodcock, of Ratcliffe-on-the-Wreake, wrote me, in 1885, that, 
some fifty years previously, the then Rector of that place kept a pack of Otter- 
Hounds. Mr. N. C. Curzon, of Lockington Hall, writes me : — “ A large female 
Otter was killed here in October, 1877.” 
Loughborough seems to have kept up its breed of Otters since Harley’s 
time ; for, seeing a notice in the local papers as to the shooting by the water 
Keeper of two young Otters in the river Soar, near the “ Big IMeadow,” Lough- 
borough, one evening in March, 1884, I sent a telegram on the 22nd to Mr. 
Dakin, a fishmonger of that town, hoping to get the specimens for the Museum, 
and received a reply : — “ Two were killed, but only one obtained. There are 
more about.” The late Mr. R. Widdowson, writing on 6th Feb., 1885, said: — 
“ I heard last week of one being seen at Brentingby ; I had one some years ago 
from the same locality.” 
A local paper relates that, on 17th Oct., 1885, the Hounds were put in at 
a little covert called “Burbidge,” on the banks of the Eye. “One Fox was 
chopped within the cover, and a fellow-lodger of another ilk. a fine Otter, also 
fell a victim to Gillard’s beauties. The assertion that ‘ Otters have been seen 
between Bishop’s IMill and the New Cover’ has been pooh-poohed. One is 
killed at any rate. The Miller of the Eye is sure there are more about, for 
not a single Eel has come down during the recent flush.” 
Mr. H. Smith, of Burton Street, Melton Mowbray — the miller alluded to 
— wrote me, Nov., 1885: — “There are a good many Otters in this neighbour- 
hood, both above and below Bishop’s Mill.” 
Mr. Macaulay sends me a note given by Rev. H. Parry, of Tug by 
