MODE OF HUNTING LYNX AND MARTEN. 101 



stumps or on the snow, flattened down with the 

 snowshoes, and the trap built thereon. 



It is considered a very good day's work in 

 December for a trapper to construct, bait and 

 set up twenty- five such traps. A real marten 

 hunter (nothing to do with my name) camps 

 each night at the end of his day's work until he 

 has from 150 to 200 traps set! He generally 

 visits them once in ten days or a fortnight, and 

 if the catch averages one marten to ten traps it 

 is considered very fair. 



It takes the hunter two full days to rebait, 

 clean out and freshen up such a line. When 

 small steel traps are used instead of the dead- 

 fall, the hunter can cover more ground in a day 

 and do better work than by making all wood 

 traps. The steel traps are much more fortunate 

 than the wood ones. In the "figure-of-four" 

 traps, before the animal is caught it must seize 

 the bait with its teeth and pull strong enough 

 to set off the trap, whereas with the steel trap 

 the mere fact of his coming to the doorway to 

 smell insures his putting his foot in it, and in a 

 moment up hangs Mr. Marten or Mr. Mink, as 

 the case may be! 



Of course the steel traps have this disadvant- 

 age they are weighty ; that is, when you have 

 fifty and over on your back, but the man who 

 follows trapping as a business can very easily 



