AN HOUR AMONGST THE FAUNA OF ASH 
ISLAND. 
MIGHT imagine myself a hundred miles from smoky 
old London, as I sit on the bank of this little island 
under the leafy branches of a fine old willow, listening 
to the sweet love songs of the thrush, blackbird, reed 
warbler, willow wren and many other kinds of feathered 
choristers, and watching the shoals of dace, roach, and bleak 
finning their way up the rapid and crystal-clear backwater 
which flows babbling along at my feet to rejoin old Father 
Thames. 
And yet, as doubtless many of the readers of Nature Notes 
are aware, Ash Island lies within a stone’s throw of Molesey 
Lock and Weir, and even when measured along the serpentine 
course of the river, the distance from the islet to London Bridge 
is only twenty-four miles. Many people appear to imagine that 
the islands and eyots of the Upper Thames are public property, 
or at any rate that boating parties have a perfect right to land 
and stay as long as they choose upon any of the islands in 
question. Such, however, is not the case, for every square foot 
of the islands is private property : indeed, even after having 
obtained permission to explore Ash Island, not only did I find 
notice boards placed at every landing place setting forth that 
“Trespassers will be prosecuted,” but also that a particularly 
spikey barbed-wire fence was erected completely round the 
island to prevent persons landing thereon. After a good deal of 
trouble, however, I managed to negotiate the obstacle, and it was 
not long before I came across what is known to sportsmen as the 
“spur” (footprints) of an otter in the clayey soil of the river 
bank, and after a somewhat lengthy hunt I found the remains of 
a half-eaten chub of about f lb. weight lying in a clump of 
rushes. The chub had evidently formed a part of the otter’s 
supper the preceding night, for it had not been out of the water 
many hours, but search around the banks in my punt, as I after- 
wards did, I failed to hit upon the “spur” again ; but then an 
otter will often travel many miles in a night, especially at this 
season of the year. 
Tying up my punt, I again crawl through the barbed-wire 
fence, tearing my jacket in more than one place during the 
ordeal, and then having lighted my favourite old pipe, I sit down 
under my willow to listen to the songs of the birds and to the 
roar of the weir-fall. I have not taken half a dozen “ whiffs,” 
when to my delight a kingfisher settles on a branch of the willow 
over-hanging the water, within a few yards of my resting-place, 
and his glorious iridescent plumage vies with the rainbow in 
point of colouring, every feather on his compact little body glint- 
ing brilliantly under the bright rays of the afternoon sun. The 
branch he has perched upon hangs immediately over a shallow 
in which I can see schools of tiny fry, and a few small dace 
