A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK been taken by a ratcatcher at Kirton Hall. Mr. Levett has been told badgers used to breed at Fagbury CliSs at Walton and Trim- ley. The three localities last named are situated in a rather isolated part of the county, lying between the rivers Orwell and Deben. In the same publication, under date 4 May 1 90 1, Mr. T. W. Thurston refers to one of these animals having been caught at Norton near Bury St. Edmunds, about four or five years previous to that time. Mr. T. E. Gunn of Norwich in the Zoologist of 1869, p. 1926, records the capture of a female and two cubs in SutFolk, close to the Norfolk boundary, in 1865. Mr. C. Whiting, in a letter to Mr. H. Miller of Ipswich, gives an account of a curious capture of one of these animals about the year 1865 or 1866 on the Dial farm, Cod- denham, by a man named Jessop. He had shot at and wounded a rabbit which his dog, as he thought, had followed to a hole. Reach- ing in with his arm, he pulled out a badger, which fortunately did not bite him. Having somehow managed to get a wire snare over its leg, he drew it into a sack and secured it. He kept it some little time shut up in a shed, but it afterwards escaped. About a week or ten days after this, a badger (doubtless the same animal) was captured close by and sold to a man living near Chelmsford. About the year 1885 or 1886 a male badger was un- fortunately destroyed at Chillesford, where it had first been noticed drinking at a pond in the village. This, there is little doubt, was one which had made its escape two or three years before from Blaxhall, about four miles distant, and which came originally from Oxfordshire. Since its escape it had lived for a time in a rabbits' burrow in that parish. A badger caught at Stratford St. Andrew by a man named Cuthbert was sent to Mr. Asten, taxidermist at Woodbridge, in May 1 89 1. Mr. W. M. Crowfoot of Beccles, in a letter to the writer, states that the last badger he has heard of in his district was dug alive out of a burrow in a small plantation at Carlton Colville, known as the ' Grove.' After having been exhibited in the neigbour- hood it was killed and stuffed, and was pur- chased in 1894 by a gentleman living at Lowestoft. The last Suffolk badger of which I can find any notice is one killed in the Cliff Hill Wood on the Sudbourne estate, on I March 1895, recorded by Mr. S. O. Hey- wood of Glevering Hall, in the East Anglian Miscellany of 9 March 1901. It is unaccount- able that an interesting and inoffensive animal like the present species, well known to do little harm to game, should almost invariably be killed wherever it makes its appearance. instead of being welcomed and protected. It does excellent service in searching out and destroying wasps' nests. For a most enter- taining account of the successful introduction and establishment of a colony of badgers by a gentleman in Leicestershire, see the Zoologist of 1888, p. 6. Since writing the above I have received a letter from Mr. C. H. Hill, gamekeeper (to whom I had been kindly referred by Mr. Laver of Colchester). This man lately lived at Stanway in Essex, where a few badgers are still, I believe, in existence. The following is an extract : ' I have seen their work in the parish of Sproughton. They (drew) an earth in the latter part of March in a hedge-row bank upon the Valley farm,. I believe for young. Unfortunately the hedge was cut down and the earth exposed, causing them to forsake it. I have not the slightest doubt that it was done by badgers, as I have seen their work at Stanway Hall. I have not heard of any being turned down here.' Tidings have just arrived of the capture during the present year of one of these animals in this county. In a letter from Mr. A. E. Elliott, Estate Office, Elveden, for- warded by the Rev. J. G. Tuck, mention is made of a badger caught last January in a belt called 'Napthens' in that parish. It was a fine male measuring 3 feet 9 inches in length. 19. Otter. Lutra lutra, Linn. Bell — Lutra vulgaris. For the last thirty years or so the number of otters frequenting the rivers and streams of this county, in spite of the treatment they generally receive, is greater than has previ- ously been the case for a considerable period. The Messrs. Paget, writing of the Yarmouth district in 1834, refer to this species as 'now seldom seen on any of the broads, where it was once not uncommon,' and up to more recent times it has been considered a rare animal in Suffolk. At present however so many instances of the capture or wanton destruction by gun, trap or other means, of this interesting and comparatively harmless animal annually come to light, that it would be difficult as well as unnecessary to enumerate them. From the Waveney and Little Ouse in the north to the Stour on the southern boundary, there are itw streams that are not occasionally visited by this nocturnal wan- derer. In the extensive marshes near the coast and the low meadows of the river valleys otters hunt the ditches for eels, frogs, fresh- water mussels {Anodonta cygnea), and coarse fish, lying up temporarily in reed beds, alder cars or any suitable retreat they can find. The 224
