ME y /El vs AND EXCHANGES 
27 
If in saying this out of love for the trout I be thought the 
heron’s lukewarm friend, allow me to redeem my character by 
pleading for the otter. We know he feeds on fish, varying his 
diet with frogs, water-rats, and a bird or two once now and then. 
But of all fish he prefers an eel, for which he will give up the 
best fresh-run salmon ; and eels are by no means friends to trout, 
as everybody knows. There is, however, one special service for 
which the otter does not obtain as much credit as he deserves, 
and that is, he drives the salmon from the river to the sea to 
recuperate after spawning. It is quite possible to conceive that 
if Nature were not to insist on her rules being carried out many 
creatures would gradually become too lazy to do her will, and 
would be in danger of extinction. Nature ordains that the 
salmon should live in the sea, and also in order to deposit its 
spawn, should resort to fresh-water rivers. By way of enforcing 
this rule, at certain times of the year salmon are attacked by a 
sea louse, which so worries them that they are glad to go into 
fresh water, which rids them of their tormentors. There, after 
the exhausting process of spawning, they settle down indolently 
in some quiet pool, decline in health and condition, and many 
die of disease. If left undisturbed they run the danger of being 
too enfeebled to regain the sea. But if an otter hustles them 
about in their retreat, and drives them through the pool, is 
there not a better chance of their being roused ere too late to 
make the effort to return to salt water ? 
The pine marten has been well-nigh exterminated, and his 
natural prey, squirrels, play havoc with our plantations and little 
birds. Let us take care that our salmon rivers do not suffer by 
undue persecution of the otter. 
Market Weston, Thetford, Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
August, I go I. 
REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES. 
Forslbotanisches Metkbttch. I. Provinz Wesipreussen. Edited by Prof. 
Conwentz. Berlin : Messrs. Borntraeger Brothers, igoo. 
This is a Government publication, and apparently a first experiment. It 
runs only to 94 small pages, and bears no indication as to its price. But, though 
it is largely a dry topographical catalogue, anyone who knows the extensive, 
drearily-monotonous pure forests of Prussia, models of scientific forestry as they 
are, will welcome it ; for here we have the official list of the interesting trees of 
all species, interesting for rarity, size, malformation, or what not, which have 
been marked for careful preservation. Some twenty excellent process- blocks 
illustrate fine specimens of pine, oak, juniper, spruce, &c. 
Birds and Man. By \V. H. Hudson, F.Z.S. Messrs. Longmans. Price 
6s. net. 
\Ve will frankly confess that we have read much of this book, which is almost 
