NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



and in the morning the spoor of a pair of otters 

 was plainly seen. We tried poisoned bait and traps 

 without success. Then, as a last resource, steel 

 spring traps were set and carefully covered with 

 soil, at the favourite landing-places of the otters ; 

 but their sense of smell being so highly developed 

 they carefully avoided the buried traps, although 

 their spoor was to be seen all around. To get the 

 fowls, these otters were obliged to travel distances 

 varying from a hundred to three hundred yards 

 from the spruit, over cultivated ground. Occa- 

 sionally a partially- devoured fowl was found amongst 

 the reeds or rushes. Some otter-hounds were ob- 

 tained and both banks of the spruit carefully 

 searched. Eventually we located and killed a 

 family of otters in some dense brushwood and scrub 

 about a mile down the spruit. We presumed this 

 family of otters were the robbers, for my tenants 

 were not troubled again for over two years, when 

 another pair of otters took possession of this 

 portion of the spruit as a hunting-ground, and 

 they, like their predecessors, soon began to give 

 trouble. 



Otters are sometimes hunted for sport on the 

 larger rivers, with otter hounds and terriers, with 

 varying success. It is difficult to dislodge an 

 otter from the cover of the reeds, rushes, or brush- 

 wood along the river banks. 



Finding the cover of the banks is no longer safe, 

 and driven to bay, the otter swims out to the centre 



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