222 NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
thousands of holiday-makers—as the foreground to the sea picture
which they carry in their memories.
The present comparative desolation of our shores may be appre-
ciated by anyone who visits the Bass Rock, or any such paradise of
birds protected by isolation or by nature's defences. There, every
jutty and coign of vantage holds its nest ; the huge white wings of
the Solan Goose throng the air and bring back thoughts of childhood's
heaven ; the birds in the distant sea are in multitude as stars set in
a firmament of blue ; while now and again in mid-distance some
lazy flapping gannet drops to seize its prey like a plummet from the
sky. Such a sight must have been in Milton's mind when he
describes the creation of the birds beginning with "the tepid caves
and fens and shores" whence :
" They summ'd their pens, and soaring th' air sublime
With clang despis'd the ground, under a cloud
In prospect."
At the Bass care is taken not to exterminate the birds, though
man takes his toll of the eggs—as do the ruthless crows among the
smaller birds.
A Japanese picture of their fleet at anchor has a tern flying off
to the left, while a crow is flapping after it on the right-hand side.
Probably the painter meant to express in birds the poet's idea of the
black wolf Night following the white fawn Day; but to the prosy
writer it brought the thought, that in Essex, crows are no longer the
tern's worst enemies.
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
Otters and Badgers near Colchester.—Dr. Laver, F.L.S., writes as follows
to "The Zoologist" for July, 1896 (vol. xx. p. 253) : "I have within the last
month purchased a young Otter and two half-grown Badgers, captured within five
miles of Colchester. The Otter, rather under half-grown, was caught by a dog
in a small brook at Alresford, Essex, and was offered to me for sale May 23rd, the
day it was captured. As it did not seem much injured, I purchased it, and sent
it to the Zoological Gardens, fearing if I set it at liberty it might not be old
enough to get its own living. The Otter was for many years very rare in Essex,
but during the last few years it would appear to be increasing in all our rivers,
and is now found, as in the days when Daniell wrote his "Rural Sports," in the
reed-beds of our marshes and in the sedges bordering our fleets, and I frequently
at night hear its whistle in the river Colne, where it passes through this town. In
this river it is becoming fairly common, and as it is admirably adapted for hunt-
ing with hounds, a visit from a pack would afford us a new sport, and, I feel sure,
would give us great assistance in our endeavours to preserve the race. The