400 TRAPPING THE TRUE AND LEGITIMATE 



line and float showing where. It is also an excellent plan to 

 look for the place where he lands, and plant a trap just under 

 water. As soon as he strikes for ground, he is caught by the 

 fore-feet. This trap needs no covering but the water, and is 

 never suspected. 



Cats, martens, and fowmartes are easily trapped. Plant a 

 circle of twigs about three yards round, the twigs a foot and 

 a half long and close to each other, placing the same bait as 

 for a fox in the centre, but without any covering; leave two 

 openings at opposite sides just large enough for the trap. You 

 may also set with baits hanging on the- stem of a tree a few 

 twigs placed on either side to prevent the vermin sneaking in 

 there, and so carrying off the buit. Box-traps are very good for 

 stoats or weasels; but as they are generally set in the low 

 grounds, where polecats also abound, I prefer an iron rat-trap 

 with a strong spring, having found that the fowmarte constantly 

 pushed up the lid of the other, and so escaped. The rat-trap 

 will hold a polecat, and do little or no injury to cattle or dogs. 

 The bait should be hung upon a twig immediately above, and 

 almost out of reach of the weasels. 



Stoats, and especially weasels, are often seen in great abun- 

 dance in summer. They may then be very easily shot, as you 

 have only to imitate the squeak of a mouse to bring them close 

 to you. I once, when without a gun, decoyed one so far away 

 from its retreat that I killed it with my stick. Should the 

 keeper see a weasel, all he has to do is, with as much speed as 

 possible, to cut a small piece from any of his baits, drag it along 

 the ground where he last saw the weasel, and hang it on a twig 

 with his rat-trap under, as before described : if he does not let 

 too long time elapse, it is sure to be taken. The weasel, like 

 the merlin, is the maximum of strength, courage, and activity, 

 in the minimum of size. The depredations of this little crea- 

 ture would not be so formidable, if he contented himself with 

 satisfying hunger. But, on the contrary, whenever he has the 

 opportunity, he murders by wholesale like the marten, rejecting 

 everything but the most dainty morsels. One of these little 



