260 FUR FACTS 



condition. It is only a waste of time and money to start out on a 

 trapping expedition with a lot of worn out traps. A bath of kerosene 

 will usually remove the rust and any good grease will put the trap in 

 good working order. If you catch an animal in your trap, a good 

 plan is to render the oil and use this animal fat to oil your traps. It 

 is just as important to have new traps well oiled as it is old ones. It 

 is well to grease them up a week or ten days before you expect to use 

 them and try them out and see that each trap works perfectly. If 

 you are using old traps see that the swivel is not rusted out and that 

 the chain is strong and equip them with the Funsten Lightning 

 Spring so that the trap will hold the animal you expect to trap with 

 it. After you have cleaned and oiled your traps, in order to remove 

 any odor from them, it might be well to boil them in ashes and water 

 and scald them clean with hot water. Some trappers prefer to 

 leave a little grease or oil on the working parts of their traps and 

 rubbing them in rabbit blood or chicken blood, but it is probably 

 best to scald them clean of all odors and coat them with beeswax in 

 order to take away the taint of the steel. In order to coat the* traps 

 with beeswax, place the traps in a bucket of hot water, then pour 

 melted beeswax over the top of the water. Lift out the traps and the 

 beeswax will cover each trap as it comes from the water. 



Some trappers find that unscrupulous persons will steal their 

 traps and to prevent this it is well to mark the traps in such a way 

 that they can be identified and the person prosecuted it they can be 

 found. One way is to mark them with a file on the bottom side or 

 any place that will not injure the spring. 



Spitz-Devil 



The Funsten "Spitz-Devil" is a very clever device, designed to 

 scare the animal but not to injure it in any way. It consists of a 

 wire metal container attached to a ten foot wire cable. This con- 

 tainer is pushed back into the opening of the den or hoUow log. 

 The shells used in the container are lighted when everything is 

 ready and throw an immense shower of sparks, which are infinites- 

 imal. It makes a great ball of fire but the sparks will not burn. 

 If there is any fur bearing animal in the den, it is bound to come 

 out. In connection with the sparks, there is a puff of smoke. 



This device is very successful for scaring out skunk, fox, wolf, etc. 



Suggestions for Fastening Traps 

 In trapping for muskrat a sliding pole is often used. It consists 

 of a long smooth pole with a fork at its upper end and the other end 



