Until the present 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 by year.  The damage they do is not great; but the millers and the farmers do not like them, because with their numerous holes they undermine the banks of the millpound, and the water finds its way through them on to the meadows.  Country folk are very fond of an occasional rat hunt:  they do lay themselves out to be hunted so tremendously.  A rat will bolt out of his hole, dive half way across the stream, then, taking advantage of the tiniest bit of weed, he will come up to the surface, poke his nose out of the water and watch you intently.  An inexperienced eye would never detect him.  But if a stone is thrown at him, finding his subterfuge detected, he is apt to lose his head—­either coming back towards you, and being obliged to come up for air before he reaches his hole, or else swimming boldly across to the opposite bank.  In the latter case he is safe.