WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



gan to run up and down the bank, whining and showing evi- 

 dent symptoms of perceiving, or, as my old keeper called it, 

 "feeling" the smell of the otter. He could not make out ex- 

 actly where it was, till at last coming to a dead stop opposite 

 a quantity of floating branches and roots that had collected 

 at a turn of the water, he pointed for a moment, and then 

 springing in, pulled out a large otter with the trap still on 

 him. It was rather difficult to know whether the otter was 

 bringing the dog, or the dog the otter, so vehemently did 

 they fight and pull at each other; but we ran up, and soon 

 put an end to the battle. The nextmorning I found another 

 otter in the traps. Nothing could keep the dog from him; 

 the moment he came within three hundredyards of theplace 

 he smelt him, and rushed off to attack him. A few nights 

 afterwards, the moon being bright and the air quite still, 

 my keeper determined to lay wait for the remaining otter. 

 H is track showed that he was a very large one, and he seem- 

 ed too cunning for the traps. The man's plan was to make 

 himself a small hiding-place, opposite a shoal in the burn, 

 where the otter must needs wade instead of swimming. We 

 had come to the conviction from the tracks that the otters 

 remained concealed during the day time a considerable 

 way up the water, and hunted down the burn during the 

 nioht to where it joined the river. 



It was a fine calm December night, with a fullmoon. The 

 old man, wrapped in a plaid,andwith a peculiarhead-dress 

 made of an old piece of drugget, which he always wore on 

 occasions of this kind, took up his position at six o'clock. 

 Before nine the otter was killed, having appeared, as he had 

 calculated, on its way down to the river. 



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