244 TRAP REFORM 



teeth there is riveted inside each of the jaws a stout 

 strip or pad of corrugated rubber which gives quite as 

 secure a grip as teeth, without lacerating the skin or 

 smashing the bones. 



The next thing is to persuade gamekeepers (a most 

 conservative race) and trappers to use it. Some of 

 them are sure to find objections to it; but others, it 

 is certain, will gladly adopt an invention which rids the 

 business of a trapper from some of its most unpleasant 

 features. John Newbiggin writes as follows : 



' For thirty-six years I have been gamekeeper at Nunwick 

 to the Allgood family, and have trapped more rabbits pro- 

 bably than any man in Northumberland. I have tried 

 Colonel Coulson's rabbit- trap for nearly three weeks. I 

 never thought it possible that such a trap could have been 

 arrived at. It holds firmly without piercing the skin. I 

 laid out rabbits that had been caught in it and the old u gin." 

 In the former there were no marks, while those caught by 

 the " gin " had broken and pierced legs. I consider this trap a 

 thoroughly humane invention, and am much taken with it.' 



My own gamekeeper, whom I desired to test one of 

 these traps, reports : ' I have now caught over a dozen 

 rabbits in the new trap without one of them having a 

 broken leg; and even the skin of the leg was not 

 broken/ These are expert opinions, and ought to put 

 the old and barbarous gin out of use in all establish- 

 ments where there is the slightest pretence to humanity. 

 It is not likely, indeed, that trapping will be rendered 

 thereby absolutely painless to rabbits. Probably it is 

 the anguish of terror which inflicts the keenest suffering 



