468 TRAPS OF thp: American Indians. 



of ice by moans of a loose gronunet to which the bait was fastened. 

 The fox, pulling at the bait, released the door of ice and found itself 

 in prison, 



Crantz describes a house trap used by the Greenlanders in which a 

 broad stone forms the moval)le door. I have seen a trap of similar 

 mechanism used b}- folks in eastern United States, in which a cage or 

 basket is propped up with a loop of splint; this, pulled inside l)y the 

 animal tugging at the bait, brings down the cage over the victim. 

 Doubtless this form of imprisoning animals designed to be taken alive 

 was quiie well spread over the continent. 



B. — ARRESTING TRAPS. 



The arresting traps are designed to seize the victim. 



(e) 3Iesh nets. — The mesh net is based on the fact that animals, b}'- 

 the conformation of their bodies or by the set of the hair, feathers, or 

 gills, may rachet themselves. To this class belong "toils" for land 

 animals, trammels and gill nets for aquatic animals. 



Among the archa^ologic treasures of our National Museiun are 

 many net sinkers, which would lead to the conclusion that netting- is 

 an old art among the al)origines. The majority of netting devices are 

 for aquatic animals, but tribes on the coast of British Columbia sus- 

 pend nets between poles in order to capture migratory geese and ducks. 

 The Eskimo make nets of sinew, of rawhide, and of baleen; these are 

 set across the rivers in open water, but more ingeniousl}" under the 

 ice by means of holes cut at such distances apart as to enable the fish- 

 ermen to draw the net out and in, 



A device somewhat in the nature of this is used by the Eskimo of 

 Point Barrow for catching seals; four holes are drilled through the 

 ice about a breathing hole; from these a net is set under the breathing 

 hole, the lines being worked through the four corners of the space; 

 the net is hung under the ice, and the seal coming to breathe is entan- 

 gled therein. 



Gill nets are set for seal after the ice forms along the shore. Mur- 

 doch reports that smaller seals are captured also in meshing nets of 1 

 rawhide set along the shore in shallow water; he thinks that the mesh- 

 ing nets in northern Alaska came from Siberia. 



Elliott illustrates Eskimo women catching salmon in a gill net con- 

 sisting of a pole and a triangular net attached. The pole rests on a 

 stone at the water line, while the net sinks in the water; as soon as a fish 

 strikes, the ^^omen lift the pole, extricate the fish, and reset the net. 



Mesh fishing is also quite common among the Athapascan tribes, 

 both on the Yukon and on the Mackenzie. Charlevoix states that in 

 St. Francis River, Canada, the Indians made holes in the ice, through j 

 which they let nets five or six fathoms long; he also describes the 

 taking of beaver by means of nets. 



