262 Union Bay 



apple are deadly when ducks are hungry. Slingshots destroy 

 a few of the tamer mallards. In addition to these routine 

 types, other methods occasionally turn up. Such was the 

 device I discovered one day when I followed a new route 

 into the cattails and toward the willows. At first I did not 

 know whether it had been made by boat, beaver, or musk- 

 rat, but when I forced my canoe over the wet path, I found 

 a V-shaped fence of low poultry netting covered at intervals 

 with vegetation to camouflage it. The netting on either side 

 terminated so as to leave a ten-inch opening at the point of 

 the V. Above this opening I could see a cord hanging from 

 the bent branch of a willow and terminating in a noose 

 which hung in front of the passage. 



It was a snare— the first which I had discovered in the 

 marsh. Somebody had considered it a quiet and efficient way 

 of getting ducks, and as there is nothing exciting about snar- 

 ing birds, it was quite evident that the trapper was primarily 

 after food. Perhaps the builder was a foreigner who had 

 trapped birds before leaving a country where snaring and 

 liming and netting were considered not only legitimate but 

 thrifty and respectable. Perhaps a boy who had read ac- 

 counts of such devices used by the early pioneers had fash- 

 ioned the device. It might have been made by a sailor or 

 miner who had lived near the ' Alaska Indians and had 

 watched them snare birds, a practice in which even the 

 youngest boys excelled. 



A song sparrow flitted among the lower parts of the cat- 

 tails and watched me as I looked at the snare. My move- 

 ments were slow, I made little disturbance, and if the bird 

 had any fear it was more than overbalanced by its curiosity. 

 I found this species everywhere in the marsh, and usually 

 displaying a considerable amount of interest when I stopped. 



I was interested, too. Except for the substitution of wire 

 netting for a fence of woven twigs or brush and a machine- 

 made cord for a strip of hide or twisted fiber, it might have 



