THE TRAPPER'S ART. 



BY S. NEWHOUSE. 



I. PRELIMINARIES. 



WILD animals are taken for various reasons besides the 

 value of their furs. Some are sought as articles of food ; 

 others are destroyed as nuisances. In these cases the meth- 

 ods of capture are not essential. Animals that are valuable 

 for food may be run down by dogs, or shot by the rifle or 

 fowling-piece ; and nuisances may be destroyed by poison. 

 But for the capture of fur-bearing animals, there is but one 

 profitable method, namely, by steel-traps. Other methods 

 were much used by trappers in old times, before good steel- 

 traps were made ; and are still used in semi-barbarous coun- 

 tries, where steel-traps are unknown, or cannot be had. I 

 will briefly mention two or three of these methods, and the 

 objections to them, and after that give my views of the true 

 method. 



THE DEAD-FALL. 



This is a clumsy contrivance for killing animals, which can 

 be made anywhere, with an axe and hard work. It con- 

 sists of two large poles (or logs when set for bears and other 

 large animals), placed one over the other and kept in place by 

 four stakes, two on each side. The upper pole is raised at 

 one end high enough above the lower to admit the entrance 

 of the animal, and is kept up in that position by the familiar 

 contrivance of the stick and spindle, or " figure four." A 

 tight pen is made with sticks, brush, &c., on one side of this 

 structure, at right angles to it, and the spindle projects ob- 



