The next to be mentioned of our _ferœ næturæ_, also the object of constant persecution, and growing, consequently, rarer every year, is the Otter. The parish of Thimbleby adjoins Woodhall Spa on the north, indeed, a large slice of it is now included in the recently created civil parish of Woodhall Spa. At the further end of Thimbleby an otter was killed in the year 1898, at a water mill on the river Bain, the miller erroneously supposing that it would kill his ducks. Shortly before, another specimen had been shot by a keeper on the same river, at Goulceby, its mate fortunately escaping. Soon after, a young specimen was seen several times disporting itself in the Horncastle Canal. It there escaped the vigilance of many would-be assassins, and gradually worked its way towards our neighbouring river, the Witham; but there it fell a victim to a gunner, who descried it in a drain near Tattershall Bridge, in Billinghay Fen. Another specimen was afterwards shot among the dykes of Walcot Dales, near the Witham, and still another in the neighbouring parish of Martin, a few years ago. Here again this persistent slaughter is much to be regretted. The otter is not the enemy to the fisherman which it is too commonly supposed to be. In the “Badminton Library,” the Honourable Geoffrey Hill says: “People are beginning to find that the otters kill and keep down the coarser fish, especially the eels, which live on the spawn and fry of the better sorts.” Mr. E. Daubney, writing from the banks of the Dart, says: “They eat frogs, rats, birds, fish, _et id genus omne_, but of nothing are they more fond than the eel; for this they will give up the finest and most fresh-run salmon.” {54b} In our own neighbourhood, in 1901, two young otters were shot on a farm at Sturton; they were at a pond which abounded in eels, and had doubtless by the eels been attracted from the river Bain, a mile distant, where they could only get trout. A naturalist, who watched some otters at their home, night and day, for more than two months, says that he only saw them take three trout; the first fish taken was an eel, the second a chub, or roach. (“Country Life,” illustrated, Vol. VI., No. 134, July, 1899.) Another authority {55a} states that the stomach of one specimen examined “was full of larvæ and earthworms”; while a fourth writer {55b} says, “Otters will eat celery, potatoes, young shoots from the hedges; and especially have they a liking for the two first.” The writer has seen a dead salmon lying on a Highland river bank with the shoulder eaten away by the otter, their peculiar habit being to take only this part, and never to return to the body again. {55c} But even their attacks on the salmon have indirectly a useful effect, for, as one of the authorities already quoted (Mr. E. Daubney) observes: “If a salmon pool is visited by otters, the salmon are hustled, and so made to bestir themselves (often when sickly, and reluctant to