98 CANADIAN WILDS. 



head being to the skin gives it the natural shape 

 and smell, and the lynx, walking leisurely along 

 the snowshoe track, notices the game and makes 

 a spring for it through the snare. In his head- 

 long bound he carries snare and cross stick 

 along with him, and as soon as he feels the cord 

 tightening about his neck he not infrequently 

 becomes his own executioner by getting his fore- 

 feet on the stick and pulling backwards as hard 

 as he can. The more he struggles, ihe madder 

 he gets, and pulls the harder to free himself, but 

 this is, on the contrary, only making matters 

 worse. The loop of the noose gets matted into 

 the soft, thick hair of the throat, and there is 

 no "slack" after that; in a few moments the 

 great cat is dead. 



Sometimes the lynx carries the cross stick in 

 his mouth and climbs a tree. This is invariably 

 the last tree he ever climbs, because once up the 

 tree he lets the stick drop and it hangs down, 

 generally on the opposite side of the limb from 

 that on which the lynx is. As the cat goes 

 down the tree on one side, the cross stick goes 

 up toward the limb on the other and gets fixed 

 in the crotch. As soon as the cord tightens 

 about his neck he tries the harder to get down, 

 and is consequently hanging himself. 



Lynxes are very stupid. They will even put 

 their foot into an open and exposed steel trap; 



