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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