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The Otter
CHAPTER XII.
The Otter: Habits-Catching of-Shooting-Attachment to each other-
Anecdotes-Fish killed by.
Having lately seen the tracks of three or four otters about the
edge of the burn, I had some strong traps placed on a sandbank where they were in the nightly habit of landing. For
some unknown reason of their own, they appeared to leave the
water at this bank, and, after going round some alder bushes, to
return again to the pool. We placed the traps with great care,
fastening them strongly, and covering them with sand. Before
setting the trap for an otter, both the hands of the person who
sets it and the trap itself should be well washed and rubbed
with sand, in order to take away the human scent as much as
possible. After setting the trap, a small branch of a tree should
be used to smooth the ground and obliterate all footmarks, and
then dipping the branch in the water, the whole place should be
well sprinkled, which generally does away with all marks of
people having been about it. As otters invariably have some
particular points at which they leave the water, it is easy to
know where to place the trap. They do not, however, always
haunt the same part of a stream, so the trapper must have some
patience. After our traps had been set for two nights, we found,
ongoing to them in the morning,that an otter had been caught,
and by twisting the chain round the root of a tree had contrived
to break it, and escape with the trap on its leg. I sent home for my
retriever, who, from having been severely bitten by other otters,
was very eager in pursuing them. We hunted up and down the
burn for some time in vain ; at last we found his track and that
of the trap in the sand at a shallow place of the water. This
encouraged us, and we renewed our search. At last, nearly a
mile from where the trap had been set, the dog began to run up
and down the bank, whining and showing evident symptoms of
perceiving, or, as my old keeper called it, " feeling " the smell
of the otter. He could not make out exactly 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 next morning I found
another otter in the traps. Nothing could keep the dog from
him ; the moment he came within three hundred j^ards of the
place 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. His
track showed that he was a very large one, and he seemed 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 night to where it joined the river.
It was a fine calm December night, with a full moon. The
old man, wrapped in a plaid, and with a peculiar head-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.
This is one of the surest ways of killing this animal when he
frequents a river or brook which in parts is so shallow as to
oblige the otter to show himself in his nightly travels. They
appear to go a considerable distance, generally hunting down
the stream, and returning up to their place of concealment before
dawn. At certain places they seem to come to land every night,
or, at any rate, every time that they pass that way. In solitary
and undisturbed situations I have sometimes fallen in with the
otter during the day. In a loch far on the hills, I have seen
one raise itself half out of the water, take a steady look at me,
and then sink gradually and quietly below the surface, appearing
again at some distance, but next time showing only part of its
head. At other times I have seen one floating down a stream,
with no exertion of its own which could attract notice; but
passing with the current, showing only the top of its head and
its nose, with its tail floating near the surface, and waving to and
fro as if quite independent of all restraint from its owner. If
he fancies that he is observed on these occasions, down he sinks
to the bottom, where he lies quietly as long as he can do without
air; and when obliged to rise to breathe, he comes up close to
the bank, or amongst weeds, with only his nose above water.
If, however, the water is clear, and you persist in watching him,
and by quickly approaching him, oblige him constantly to dive,
the poor beast will at last in sheer despair crawl out on the bank,
concealing himself in the best manner he can. But it takes
some time to oblige him to do this.
Otters are very affectionate animals. If you shoot an old one
who has young in the vicinity, they very soon appear searching
anxiously for their mother ; and if you kill the young ones, the
parent will come boldly to the surface, and hover about the place
till she is killed herself. When a pair of otters frequent a place,
if one is killed, the other will hunt for its lost mate in the most
persevering manner. If one is caught in a trap, the other remains all night near her, running round and round, in vain trying
to get her away. Though usually so noiseless and quiet, on these
occasions they make a great hubbub, blowing and snorting almost
like a swimming horse
Sometimes they lie all day on some small island or bank
covered with rushes, ready to slip down into the water on the
approach of danger. I was one day in August looking for young
wild ducks in a swamp covered with rushes and grass, when my
dog, who was running and splashing through the shallow water,
suddenly stood still, sometimes whining as if caught in a trap,
and then biting furiously at something in the water. I could
not imagine what had happened to him, and he either would not
or could not come to me when called, so I waded over to see
what was the matter. I found a large otter firmly holding on by
his powerful jaws to the dog's shoulder, and had he not had a
good covering of curly hair, I believe the brute would have
broken his leg, so severe was the bite: even when I came up,
the otter seemed very little inclined to let go; but at last did
so, and I shot him as he splashed away.
When one of these animals is surprised in an open place, he
will for some time trust to being concealed, remaining flat on
the ground, with his sharp little eyes, which are placed very
high on the head, intently fixed on you. Like all other wild
animals, he has an instinctive knowledge of how long he is unperceived, for the moment he sees that your eye is on him, he
darts off, but not till then. During the winter many of the
river and lake otters take to the coast, travelling a long way for
this purpose, sometimes keeping the course of the streams, but
occasionally going across the country. I have seen their tracks
in places at a very great distance from water, where they evidently had been merely passing down to the sea.
When on the coast, they frequent the caves and broken masses
of rock. The otters that live wholly on the coast grow very
large. It is easy to turn them out of their holes with terriers,
as long as you remain quiet and unobserved by the otter yourself. If he once has found out that you are waiting to receive
him at the mouth of his hole, he will fight to the last rather than
leave it. I have been told that they bolt more readily to a white
coloured dog than to any other. All courageous dogs who
have been once entered at otters, hunt them with more eager*
ness and animosity than they do any other kind of vermin.
The otters here are very fond of searching the shallow pools
of the sea at the mouth of the river for flounders, and I often
find their tracks, where they have evidently been so employed.
If surprised by the daylight appearing too soon to admit of
their returning to their usual haunts, they will lie up in any
broken bank, furze bush, or other place of concealment.
At some of the falls of the Findhorn, where the river runs so
rapidly that they cannot stem it, they have to leave the water to
go across the ground ; and in these places they have regularly
beaten tracks. I was rather amused at an old woman living at
Sluie, on the Findhorn, who, complaining of the hardness of the
present times, when " a puir body could n'a get a drop smuggled
whisky, or shot a rae without his lordship's sportsman finding it
out," added to her list of grievances that even the otters were
nearly all gone, " puir beasties." " Well, but what good could
the otters do you?" I asked her. "Good, your honour? why
scarcely a morn came but they left a bonny grilse on the scarp
down yonder, and the vennison was none the waur of the
bit, the puir beasts eat themselves." The people here call
every eatable animal, fish, flesh, or fowl, venison, or as they pronounce it, " vennison." For instance they tell you that the
snipes are " good vennison," or that the trout are not good
"vennison" in the winter.
It seems that a few years ago, before the otters had been so
much destroyed, the people on particular parts of the river were
never at a loss for salmon, as the otters always take them ashore,
and generally to the same bank or rock, and when the fish are
plenty, they only eat a small piece out of the shoulder of each,
leaving the rest. The cottagers, aware of this, were in the habit
of looking every morning for these remains.
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