SHELLING 
147 
events it was hauled out for further inspection. By this time 
the creature was fast growing tame, allowed itself to be stroked, 
and even showed a disposition to follow people about. 
At night it rained heavily and we fondly imagined the parent 
otter coming up from the river and crossing the road under 
cover of darkness to reclaim her wandering infant. Alas! for 
the pretty cub and our hopes of its restoration to its home 
beside the water ! On the next morning the poor thing was 
found lying upon a grassy bank, a sorrowful, bedraggled little 
corpse. When it was too late we realised that we ought to 
have tried to feed our visitor with a bottle on account of its 
tender age and not have left it to the apparently heedless 
.mother. But as a matter of fact the tiny creature’s teeth would 
have rendered feeding-bottle experiments hazardous, and more- 
over the mother otter was so confidently expected to attend to 
her offspring’s needs so soon as darkness fell. 
All that could now be done was to pack the little body off 
to a taxidermist, first drying the sodden fur and restoring the 
lost beauty so far as was possible when once the life was out. 
So that, after all, the otter cub will make its abode with me, 
but only as the tenant of a glass coffin. 
It but remains to be added that since the date above men- 
tioned several full-grown otters have been seen quite close to 
Stratford ; in one case a specimen was actually observed from 
Clopton Bridge making its breakfast off an eel upon the bank. 
It thus becomes fairly clear that a pair of these animals have 
this spring made their “ holt ” in proximity to the town, and one 
can only hope that the other infant members of the family will 
escape such untimely ends as that which befell my particular 
cub. 
Stratford-on-Avon, Reginald Hudson. 
April, 1905. 
SHELLING. 
HE country is never dull (whatever may be said to the 
contrary) if one is able to drink in and enjoy the 
beauty of the flowers and butterflies, or to watch the 
wild animals and birds in their natural haunts. And 
there is another hobby which is wonderfully interesting, namely, 
shelling. We do not hear very much about conchology, but at 
least one well-known bishop, many clergy, doctors and working 
men, not to mention many ladies of high degree, find shell- 
collecting intensely fascinating. The shells are many of them 
so lovely and the varieties so endless that every new locality 
visited will yield something of interest. Shells are easily stored, 
they do not easily break, and the hobby has the advantage of 
being a cheap one. 
]\Iost neighbourhoods will produce something, and the true 
