Or animal life, though abundant, there is little or nothing special to record, besides the list of birds.
Polecats and martens only exist in the old rating book, but weasels and stoats remain, as well as a profusion of their prey—hares and rabbits. Squirrels haunt the trees, and otters are occasionally found in the river. Trout, grayling, now and then a pike, as well as the smaller fry of minnows and sticklebacks, are of course found in the streams. Eels used to be caught there on the moonlight nights by old labourers with a taste for sport, and the quaint little river cray-fish may be picked out of the banks of the “water-carriages.”
Toads and frogs are a matter of course. Sometimes a procession of tiny, but perfectly formed “Charley Frogs,” as the village boys call them, just emerged from their tadpole state, may be seen making their way up from their native pools.
The pretty crested newt, dark brown and orange, with a gold crest along its back like an iguana, is found in shallow ponds, also the smooth newt. These efts, or evvets, as the people call them, are regarded with horror by the peasantry. The children speak of having seen one as if it were a crocodile; and an abscess in the arm has been ascribed to having picked up an “evvet in a bundle of grass.”
The slow-worm, in silvery coat, is too often slaughtered as a snake. Vipers come to light in the woods, also the harmless brown snake. One of these has been seen swimming across a pond, his head just out of the water, another climbing an oak tree, and one, upon the lawn, was induced to disgorge a frog, which gathered up its legs and hopped away as if nothing had happened.
Of rats and mice and such small deer there are only too many, though it is worth while to watch rats at play round a hay-rick on Sunday evenings, when they know they will not be persecuted, and sit up like little kangaroos. The vole, which is not a rat, is a goodly sight, and the smooth round dormouse (or sleep-mouse, as the children call it) is a favourite gift imprisoned in an old tea-pot.
The beautiful nest of a field-mouse has been found in a cypress's thick foliage, and dead shrews bestrew the paths; though the magic effects of having a “sherry mouse” die in one's hand, and thus being enabled to stroke cattle and cure them, have never been experienced.
The anodon or fresh water mussel used to be found in Fisher's Pond on Colden Common, bordering on Otterbourne, and the green banks were strewn with shells left by the herons, but the pond is fast drying up and the herons have been driven away by guns.
The delicate paludina, of brown, horn-coloured, gracefully-formed shell, creeps on the water weeds, and hosts of snails may be studied.
Of insects less can be said here, but it is worth noting that one live purple emperor has been captured in Ampfield wood, two dead dilapidated ones picked up at Otterbourne.
The forest fly, so called, does not often come here; but it is observable that while strange horses are maddened by it, the native ones do not seem disturbed, knowing that it only creeps and does not bite. It is small and brown, not so formidable looking as the large fly, popularly called a stout, as big as a hornet, which lays eggs under the skin of cows.
But with the blue, green, and orange dragonflies of summer, this list must conclude, and turn to the birds and botany of the place, mostly well known, and verified by Mr. Townsend's Flora of Hampshire.
