100 FUR FACTS 



shape of a fish and covered with radiolite. This is fastened to the pan 

 of the trap and the trap set in shallow water close to the bank. It 

 radiates a yellow light at night and any coon passing along will stop 

 to investigate and almost always gets caught. The raccoon, unlike 

 most other animals after being caught, is philosophical and does not 

 make much of a fuss over it, so he can be taken alive with little 

 trouble. The raccoon also has a great habit of running his paw into 

 small openings looking for grubs, and other delicacies, and the wise 

 trapper takes advantage of this peculiarity by using the Funsten 

 Surehold Trap, which consists of a piece of hard wood about as big 

 around as a baseball bat, and about eight inches long. This is hol- 

 lowed out and three or four sharp screws set at an angle around the 

 edge so that the points almost meet on the inside. This is placed in 

 the ground and a few drops of Funsten Animal Bait dropped in the 

 opening. When the raccoon comes along he stops to investigate 

 and jams his paw down into the opening and comes up with the 

 wooden trap enveloping his paw. He finds that it is a hard thing to 

 shake off, and if he pulls one way it hurts, so he simply tries to gnaw 

 it off, but as it is seasoned hard wood he has a difficult job and does 

 not make much headway. This trap takes the place of the old time 

 method of finding a log that had fallen across the stream and boring 

 a hole in the top of it about eight inches deep and setting small 

 sharp horseshoe nails around the edge. The Surehold Trap has 

 many advantages over this method. It is more humane as the sharp 

 screws can be set to a nicety that is impossible with the horseshoe 

 nails, and you can set the Surehold trap where you please. As the 

 Surehold trap costs only 20c, it is in big demand. 



In some sections of the South the raccoon gets trapped without 

 the trapper having anything to do with it. It is said that he is 

 very fond of oysters and will wade along the water's edge and follow 

 the tide out in hope of slipping up on some unsuspecting oyster that 

 is lying on the beach with its shell open feeding. The raccoon will 

 stick its paw down into the shell to extract the oyster and often 

 times is successful before the oyster can close its shell. But every 

 once in a while the oyster shell closes on the raccoon's foot and 

 Mr. Oyster refuses to let go, with the result that the raccoon finds 

 himself a prisoner. These oysters attach themselves very strongly 

 to the rocks so that the coon finds it impossible to pull the shells 

 off; and there have been cases on record where they would find the 

 coon dead from exhaustion, a prisoner to his friend the oyster. 



