TRAPS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 465 



CLASSIFICATION OF TRAPS. 



Traps are variously classified according to the concept in the student's 

 mind. If it be the natural element in which they work, there will be 

 land traps for mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates; water traps 

 for mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and invertebrates; and air traps 

 for birds and insects. 



With reference to their parts, either mechanical or efficient, there 

 are a multitude of names which will appear in a separate vocabulary. 

 In the setting they are man set, self -set, ever-set. and victim-set. 



For the purpose of this paper traps ma}' be divided into three groups, 

 namely: (A) Inclosing, (B) arresting, (C) killing. In each of these we 

 may begin with the simpler forms — those with the least mechanism— 

 and end with those that are more intricate. 



A. — Inclosing Imjis. 



(a) Pen — dam, pound, fyke. 



(b) Cage — coop, pocket, cone, fish trap. 



(c) Pit— pitfalls. 



(d) Door — with trigger, fall cage, or fall door. 



B. — A rresting traps. 



(e) Mesh — gill, toils, ratchet. 



(/) Set hook — set line, gorge, trawl. 



(g) Noose — snare, springe, fall snare, trawl snare. 



(h) Clutch — bird lime, mechanical jaws. 



C. — Killing traps. 

 (i) Weight— fall, dead fall. 

 (k) Point — impaling, stomach, missile. 

 (/) Edge — wolf knife, braining knife. 



A. — INCLOSING TRAI's. 



Inclosing traps are those which imprison the victim, most of them 

 without doing anj- further bodily harm, though there may be added 

 to these some other devices which will injure or kill. There are four 

 kinds of inclosing traps: (a) Pen traps, (b) cage traps, (c) pit traps, (d) 

 door traps. 



(a) Pen traps. — These include pounds or corrals on land, and dams, 

 fish pens, and fykes in the water, the idea being simply to inclose. Traps 

 of this sort have no tops and therefore are not useful for birds. In 

 connection with other forms, small inelosures are used to surround the 

 bait and to guide the victim in a certain direction. How the animal 

 gets in, how it is kept in. and what is done to it afterwards will decide 

 whether the pound is a trap or a corral or wmether it is a reservoir, an 

 abattoir, or a domesticating device. The simplest form of pound is of 

 brush or reeds, and confines whatever enters, large or small; but the 

 perfect form has interstices carefully adapted to retain certain species 



SM 1901 30 



