men hold the ends and walk up the stream, one on each side of the river, mowing as they go.

There is a certain amount of management required in weed-cutting. If much weed is left uncut, the millers grumble; if you cut them bare, there are no homes left for the fish. The last is the worse evil of the two. The millers are usually kind-hearted men, whilst poachers can commit fearful depredations in a small stream that has been cut too bare.

The way these limestone streams are netted is as follows: About two in the morning, when there is enough light to commence operations, a net is laid across the stream and pegged down at each end; the water is then beaten with long sticks both above and below the net. Nor is it difficult to drive the trout into the trap; they rush down helter-skelter, and, failing to see any net, they soon become hopelessly entangled in its meshes. The bobbing corks intimate to the poachers that there are some good trout in the net; one end is then unpegged, and the haul is made.

About ten trout would be a good catch. The operation is repeated four or five times, until some fifty fish have been bagged. The poachers then depart, taking care to remove all signs of their night's work, such as scales of fish, stray weeds, and bits of stick.

In weed-cutting by hand, instead of with the long knives, it is wonderful how many trout get cut by the scythes. There used to be several good fish killed this way at each annual cutting, when the men used to walk up the stream mowing as they

XIV.]

went.

SCARCITY OF OTTERS.

337

One would have thought trout would have been able to avoid the scythes, being such quick, slippery animals.

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 huntingground 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

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WATER-VOLES.

339

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.

Tom Peregrine is a great hand at catching watervoles in a landing-net. He holds the net over the hole which leads to the water, and pokes his stick into the bank above. The rat bolts out into the net and is immediately landed. House-rats-great black brutes-live in the banks of the stream as well as water-voles. They are very much larger and less fascinating than the voles. To see one of the latter species crossing the stream with a long piece of grass in his mouth is a very pretty sight. They are rodents, and somewhat resemble squirrels.

A

BOUT the middle of May the lovely, sweetscenting lilac comes into bloom. It brightens up the old, time-worn barns, and relieves the monotony of grey stone walls and mossy roofs in the Cotswold village.

The prevailing colour of the Cotswold landscape may be said to be that of gold. The richest gold is that of the flaming marsh-marigolds in the water meadows during May; goldilocks and buttercups of