86 NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
assured them protection and strict preservation." Mr. Morris subsequently
writes, under date May 26th, that—"I have heard from the owner of the covert
in which the badgers had made their earth that out of the eleven badgers nine
were saved ; six are hoped to be safe in another part of Essex, to which they were
deported to coverts where their services were required to construct earths for
foxes; two came to grief, one by natural causes, the other through misadventure,
i.e., entanglement in a poacher's snare ; the remainder were relegated to another
county. I ask the favour of this explanation for two reasons, to allay the
apprehension that they were destroyed, and to be able to state that the owner of
the wood was too good a sportsman to allow them to be slaughtered."
Otter Notes.—The following records of the destruction of otters in Essex
have appeared in the local papers. It appears to be futile to remonstrate against
the senseless and wicked attempt to exterminate this most interesting animal.
Otter at Heybridge.—"On January 15th, Mr. James Woodcraft, of Hey-
bridge Basin, shot a very fine female otter, on the bank of the Chelmer and
Blackwater canal, near the Basin. The animal measured 3 ft. 7 in. from
the nose to the tip of the tail, and weighed 13 lbs. The coat was in splendid
condition."
Otter at West Bergholt.—"On Thursday afternoon, January nth, while
Mr. A. E. Diss and Mr. W. H. Wythe were up the river wild fowl shooting,
they managed to secure a male otter."
Otters in the Blackwater, near Langford.—"A number of otters have made
their appearance in the Blackwater, at Langford, since the London Anglers'
Association restocked their private water there with two tons of fish.
Remains of fish have frequently been discovered on the banks, and three
otters have recently been shot. The last one was killed on Sunday, Feb-
ruary 4th, and was subsequently exhibited at a committee meeting of the
Association, held at Foresters' Hall, Clerkenwell."
An Otter thirteen miles from a river.—"In the early part of April, a
labourer on the Fanton Hall estate, North Benfleet, saw what he took to be
a fox run into a drain under a field gateway. He immediately informed Mr.
W. Butcher, bailiff to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to whom the property
belongs. Mr. Butcher at once proceeded to dig it out, and after some three
hours' digging got down to the drain, which was covered in with timber slabs ;
but another hour and a half elapsed before he was able to capture the animal,
which he did by passing a workman's waist-strap over its head. He had
never before seen an otter (for so it turned out to be, a female, weighing
141/2 lb.), and had no notion of what animal he had caught. It is a mystery
what the otter was there for, as there is an entire absence in the neighbour-
hood of anything in the shape of otter's food. The nearest river is the
Chelmer, thirteen miles away. It is supposed that the animal had been
disturbed by a shooting party."
Death of a Horse from Yew Poisoning.—"On Wednesday afternoon,
February 7th, Mr. H. J. Hutson, Maldon, had a horse die from eating some yew-
boughs, which, it is said, had been gathered by the borough road men, and thrown
on a rubbish heap. The animal reached over the fence of the field in which it
was, and picked them up and ate them, dying shortly afterwards."—"Essex
County Standard."
Rough-Legged Buzzard in Essex.—"A rough-legged buzzard (Archi-
buteo lagopus) has recently been trapped at Hatfield Peverel while feeding on a
pheasant."—"Essex County Chronicle," January 25th, 1894.
A Travelling Sparrow's Nest.—"A sparrow's nest, containing five eggs,
was the other day discovered between the Westinghouse brake of one of the
London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway Company's carriages and the bottom of