Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/198

172 within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, shall be deemed to be offences of the same nature and liable to the same punishments as if they had been committed upon any land in the United Kingdom, and may be dealt with, inquired of, tried, and determined in any county or place in the United Kingdom in which the offender shall be apprehended or be in custody, in the same manner in all respects as if they had been actually committed in that county or place; and in any information or conviction for any such offence the offence may be averred to have been committed "on the high seas;" and in Scotland any offence committed against this Act on the sea coast, or at sea beyond the ordinary jurisdiction of any sheriff or justice of the peace, shall be held to have been committed in any county abutting on such sea coast, or adjoining such sea, and may be tried and punished accordingly.

7. Where any offence under this Act is committed in or upon any waters forming the boundary between any two counties, districts of quarter sessions or petty sessions, such offence may be prosecuted before any justice or justices of the peace or sheriff in either of such counties or districts.

 

—The Beaver which, some centuries ago, was so numerous in Russia and Western Siberia, and which was supposed to have totally disappeared from both countries, continues to exist on the rivulet Pelyin. M. Poliakoff has procured from an ostyack on the Obi five skins of these animals killed last year, and he has engaged a hunter to procure this winter complete specimens for the Museum of the St. Petersburg Academy. No farther back than a century ago the Beaver was common on one of the affluents of the Irtysh, Bobrotka, but it has now totally disappeared from the locality, the last colony existing probably on the Pelyin.— ' Nature,' 18th January, 1877.

—I am very glad to see that the breeding of the Otter is attracting the attention of your correspondents, and trust the result may be something more definite than the stereotyped "three to five young ones in March or April." I have long paid great attention to the habits of the Otter in the county of Norfolk, and so far as I have been able to ascertain with certainty, the young ones are almost invariably born in the dead months of the year. I read with interest Mr. A.H. Cocks' note on the breeding of the Otter (p. 100), but cannot agree with