COUN'TRY LIFE
OURS is a very hospitable island ; but it is not always well-treated by its guests. Of late years scares have been frequent about many different creatures and plants: the musk rat, the grey squirrel and little owl, the caterpillar, the American weed and the rest. Most of the alarm i have tapered away ; but one new one has arisen. The coypu is said to be increasing at some speed in East Anglia, especially in the Norfolk Broads, which give the animal its optimum of conditions. It is a sort of water rat and not altogether unlike a very small otter, and in its native homes in South America has been known to do a good deal of harm to waterside embankments. It has a valuable, rather seal-like skin (known as nutria) and is held, like the grey squirrel, to be a culinary dainty. These Anglian
immigrants should suit a sweet tooth, for they have developed a taste for sugar-beet ; and the chief news and complaints of their multiplication "come from sugar-beet farmers. Supposing they should become a strong colony, it would be very difficult to exterminate them in a district so nobly provided with suitable conditions for breeding.
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