esent season otters have seldom visited our parts of the
Coln. Unfortunately, however, they have turned up, and are committing
sad havoc among the fish. It is such a terribly easy stream for them to
work. The water is very shallow, and the current is a slow one.

We are not well up in otter-hunting in these parts, there being no
hounds within fifty miles. I have never seen an otter on the Coln. But
one day, at a spot near which we have noticed the billet of an otter and
some fishes' heads, I heard a noise in the water, and a huge wave seemed
to indicate that something bigger than a Coln trout was proceeding up
stream close to the bank all the way. On running up, of course I saw
nothing. But half an hour afterwards I saw another big wave of the same
kind. It was so close to me that if it had been a fish or a rat I must
have seen him. I had a terrier with me, but of course he was unable to
find an otter. A dog unbroken to the scent is worse than useless.

On another occasion I saw a water-vole running away from some larger
animal under the opposite bank of the river. Some bushes prevented my
seeing very well, but I am almost certain it was an otter. "A Son of the
Marshes" mentions in one of his charming books that otters do kill
water-rats. I was not aware of this fact until I read it in the book
called "From Spring to Fall."

The broad shallow reach of the Coln in front of the manor house seems
to be a favourite hunting-ground of the otter during his nocturnal
rambles; for sometimes one is awakened at night by a tremendous tumult
among the wild duck and moorhens that haunt the pool. They rush up and
down, screaming and flapping their wings as if they were "daft."

A few weeks after writing the above we caught a beautiful female otter
in a trap, weighing some seventeen pounds. I have regretted its capture
ever since. Great as the number of trout they eat undoubtedly is, I do
not intend to allow another otter to be trapped, unless they become too
numerous. Such lovely, mysterious creatures are becoming far too scarce
nowadays, and ought to be rigidly preserved. Last October we were
shooting a withybed of two acres on the river bank, when the beaters
suddenly began shouting, "An otter! An otter!" And sure enough a large
dog otter ran straight down the line. This small withybed also contained
three fine foxes and a good sprinkling of pheasants.

The number of water-voles in the banks of this stream seems to increase
year