" Tolling " Wild Animals 



HAVING hunted as an amateur and as a professional 

 for a great many years pretty well all over the 

 North American continent, I had until lately 

 laboured under the impression that I knew nearly every 

 method extant, or extinct, for catching wild animals. 



Early in June of this year an acquaintance living at 

 Vogler's Cove, on the coast of Nova Scotia, " sprang " 

 a new one. In a very matter-of-fact way he told me 

 about a man named Nowe, living in his little village, 

 who made a practice of " tolling " wild animals. When 

 asked to elucidate, he explained that he had accompanied 

 his friend Nowe when he had caught mink by means of a 

 wire snare held in his hand, and which he slipped over 

 the mink's head after " coaxing " him close enough to do 

 so. This sounded like true " animal magnetism," or plain 

 bunk, and I naturally doubted the truth of the story. 



My acquaintance then went on to tell me that he had 

 actually shipped three pairs of mink caught this way 

 by Mr. Nowe to a local fur farm, and that he had received 

 sixty-five dollars per pair for them alive for breeding 

 purposes. He told how this wizard Nowe could catch, 

 and had caught, other wild animals by the same method. 

 He gave in detail a performance he had seen Nowe conduct 

 with seals in Port Medway Harbour: 



"Nowe would lie down on the rocks near the edge of the 

 water," he went on, " and writhe around in imitation of 

 a seal, and thereby coax the real seals up so close to him 

 that he could put his hands upon them and actually play 

 with them, or fasten a rope to them if he wished to." 



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