368 Sporting Sketches 



and stump is a perfect cover. This is well, for in 

 addition to man he has natural foes which know not 

 mercy. Chief among these are the lynx, fox, wolf, 

 fisher, marten, the great horned and the snowy owls, 

 and other rapacious birds. Other creatures, too, 

 prey upon him more or less at their murderous 

 wills, for if once cornered, he offers no defence 

 whatever. 



Most of the hares which not seldom glut our 

 winter markets are victims of the snare. A few 

 are trapped in other ways, while others are shot, but 

 their numbers are insignificant in comparison to 

 those which die by the craftily placed wire. To 

 snare a hare is, of course, an unpardonable thing 

 from a sportsman's point of view. The habits of the 

 animal render it such an easy victim that only a 

 thoughtless boy, or an out-and-out poacher, would 

 bother himself over its capture. Like the Virginia 

 deer, the hare has regular runways along which it 

 travels through its favorite swamp or other cover. 

 All the poacher has to do is to locate these runways 

 by the tracks, set a few snares, and wait for the un- 

 fortunate hares to do the rest. The snares are 

 fastened to " twitch-ups " springy poles, sufficiently 

 long and strong to lift a hare a few feet off the 

 ground. The wretched victim sooner or later comes 

 hopping along the runway, his head enters the noose, 

 and in an instant he is jerked off his feet, then 

 hanged by the neck until he is dead. The object 

 of the spring-pole is twofold first, to strangle the 

 victim, and second, to lift the body beyond the reach 

 of any prowling creature whida might fancy cold 

 hare. The whole business requires about as much 



