FOREST AND STREAM. 



TRAPPING 



For Forest and Stream, 

 MINK. 



NOT long ago my nephew was seized with an attack 

 of the trapping mania, which is almost certain to 

 lay hold of all live country hoys, and is outgrown in a 

 few years by most, but from which a few never recover. 

 The disease has progressed with this youngster in the 

 usual way. First, the mouse stage, which ran its course, 

 ending when he had caught a dollar's worth of these small 

 deer, at five cents a dozen, duly paid him by his grand- 

 father in lawful currency of these United States. Then 

 the rat stage declared itself, and for a fortnight the kitchen 

 was littered every night like a capenter's shop with the 

 shavings he made in building "figgery fours," which, 

 somehow, wouldn't work— going off when they shouldn't, 

 or not going off when they should, and were at last con- 

 signed to the kindling basket with the shavings. Then a 

 few antiquated steel traps were borrowed of a neighbor, 

 and set with more satisfactory results, and rat after rat 

 was shown in triumph to the household till rats palled 

 upon his aspiring soul, and he sought a stronger foeman, 

 worthier of his steel. He found it in the skunk, and has 

 been so far successful as to patch the end of the wood- 

 shed with the skins of several of his captives, and to make 

 himself so odiously odorous that the ruling powers have 

 forbidden his seeking further distinction in this direction. 

 Now he thinks he has seen a mink track down by the 

 Slang, though likely it is only that of a large weasle, and 

 coming to me, asks: "How shall I set a trap for a mink ?" 

 I can show you better tkan I can tell you, my boy, though 

 I fear it will be of little use to you, for mink have become 

 scarce here, almost to extinction. However, let us go and 

 see what can be done. Here are half a dozen single spring 

 steel-traps, muskrat size, of the Oneida Community's make, 

 and there are none better. When I was of your age, 

 traps as good as these cost nine dollars a dozen, as they 

 were all hand-made, and good makers were so rare that 

 one was a noted man in his county. These we will take 

 in a peck-basket, which is a handy thing to have, as we 

 shall see, and a hatchet which we must have, and also a 

 gun, if for nothing else, to keep us from those glorious 

 chances so sure to befall him who goeth forth unarmed 

 through forest or by streams. And here we are on the 

 banks of the sluggish Slang, and sure enough, these tracks 

 in the mud are of a mink, and, judging from their size, of 

 one whose days have already been many in the land. Two 

 and two they go, side by side across this patch of mud, 

 unmistakable mink tracks. He turned out of his course a 

 little to go through that hollow log, as any true mink 

 would, and when he comes this way next time will pretty 

 surely do so again. So we will set a trap in the log here 

 where the hollow is narrowest. Cut a stout " tally stick," 

 with a hook near the but and a fork at the top. Slip the 

 trap-chain on this, and if you cannot thrust it into the 

 ground firmly enough for security, tie the top to this over- 

 hanging branch of water-maple. Be careful about this, 

 for the mink is a strong fellow, and will make a lusty pull 

 to regain his liberty. Now cover the trap and chain care- 

 fully, but lightly, with the matted moss which grows upon 

 this log, and hang a morsel of bait directly over the pan. 

 The head of the chicken that furnished our breakfast 

 fast is better than nothing, though I would rather have a 

 small fish, or best of all, as I think, a bit of muskrat. A 

 drop of musk on the bait will help to attract him. Some 

 use smoked herring for bait, but they never proved good 

 with me. It is said that a veiy taking scent can be made 

 by putting an eel, chopped small, into a bottle, and letting 

 it hang in the sun till it turns to oil, but I never have tried 

 it, having always found muskrat good enough. There 

 swims one now, with his mouth full of weeds, building 

 material for his house. A charge of B.B.'s puts an end to 

 his earthly labors, and he will furnish bait enough for all 

 our traps, with plenty left for rebaiting. This railroad 

 culvert used to be a favorite haunt of mink, and we will 

 set a trap here after another fashion. Place it here in this 

 slack-water, an inch or two below the surface, and lay two 

 or three of these sodden leaves over it. Hang the bait over 

 it, just as in the other place. Stick the "tally" in the 

 deep water, as far off as the chain will reach, so that the 

 mink will drown, if caught. Many a mink have I done to 

 death here, and to show you the virtue of muskrat for bait, 

 will tell you of one of them. I knew he was hanging 

 about here, for I had seen him, but he would not go near 

 my trap, for which I had no better bait than a chicken's 

 head. It had no charms for him, and my trap gaped un- 

 molested for many days. So I went over to the camp of 

 Swaein Tahmont, a St. Francis Indian, down from Canada, 

 trapping, and got of him the carcass of a muskrat,with the 

 head of which I rebaited my trap, and went my way to 

 others. Returning this way only half an hour later, the 

 chink Of the trap-chain greeted my ears as I drew near, 

 telling the tale of something caught, and sure enough, 

 there poor furry was, fast by a hind leg, but struggling 

 bravely for life and liberty. Now we come to a iong 

 stretch, somewhere in which we ought to set a trap. 

 There is no hollow log nor stump, nor hole^ in the bank 

 which we can use, nor any place to set a trap in the water. 

 If there was a standing tree with a hollow but we would 

 hang our bait in it, set our trap, covered with moss, at one 

 of the openings, and close all the others, but there are none 

 of these and we must make a place. This we will do by 

 making a s< cubby-house " about a foot long, half as wide, 

 and eight or ten inches high. Its walls are sticks driven 

 into the ground; it is roofed with bark or any slabs of 

 wood at hand, and the less new looking the whole thing 

 is the better. It has no opening but the doorway, which 

 is about the width of the open trap, and this we set in it, 

 or iust inside of it, and cover with some of the moss which 

 we brought in our basket, or with some of these fallen pine 

 needles which are lying all about it, for it is better, when 

 you can, to cover your trap with what will not look strange 

 and out of place. Snow, however, is a poor covering for 

 a mink trap, as it is apt to crust over hard enough to bear 

 so light an animal. Put the bait on a stick, well back in 

 the house, and scatter a shred or two of it about the door. 

 The tally is made fast just as in the other places. These 

 "cubbys" seem to be just as good -as natural places, and I 

 vt^pink-ono Mils one just like this. Some 



trappers trail their bait along the ground from trap to trap, 

 holding that the animals will follow it. It can do no 

 harm, but is a little more troublesome than carrying it in 

 your basket. 



The remaining traps you will set, each in some such 

 place as we have used or I have told you of. No two will 

 be exactly alike, and you will have a chance to exercise 

 your judgment and ingenuity. You may find where a 

 mink lives and where he goes every day in and out of his 

 burrow. No need of bait there; all you have to do is to 

 set your trap carefully at the door of Ms heme. Or, per- 

 haps, you will find where he has made a deposit of frogs 

 beside a pile of driftwood. If so, set your trap there. 

 Hollow logs near water, piles of driftwood, overhanging 

 banks with a screen of tree-roots, behind which he can 

 travel unseen, the stone or wooden abutments of old 

 bridges are haunts he loves, and when in any of these 

 places you find his "sign," his dark-colored excrement, 

 fresh and frequent, there set your trap, with or without 

 bait, as the case may be. 



Remember that to be a successful trapper you must be a 

 close observer of the habits of the animals you are trap- 

 ping. The more you can learn of them, the more ready 

 will you be with expedients for every case that presents 

 itself. I never yet saw a good trapper but would say that 

 he was always learning something. 



Now I will show you how to make a dead-fall. It is a 

 contrivance with which I never had any luck, but it is in 

 high favor with some trappers. Cut that smooth maple 

 sapling which is about two inches through at the butt, and 

 trim off the lower branches. Cut a piece a foot and a half 

 long off the larger end, and lay this short stick down on a 

 level place. This is the bed*piece ; now cut four straight 

 smooth sticks, fourteen or fifteen inches long, for guides ; 

 sharpen and drive them into the ground, two on each side 

 of the bed-piece, and the two pairs about eight inches 

 apart. Place the long sapling— the fall— with its larger 

 end on top of the bed-piece, lengthwise, and see that it 

 will rise and fall easily between the guides. The upper 

 limbs are left on the fall to keep it from rolling when 

 raised. Now build a house close up to the two inner 

 guides, like the one we made for the steel-trap. Next, 

 whittle out a standard of hard wood, two and one half inches 

 long, cut square at its upper end, and like a very blunt 

 wedge at its lower. Then a spindle, eight inches long, flat 

 on the lower side Of the large end, beveled to a blunt 

 edge on the upper side of the same, and sharpened at the 

 other end, near which should be a fork to keep the bait 

 from being pulled up on the spindle. When we have 

 weighted the fall with some heavy pieces of wood our trap 

 will be ready to set. This we do by raising the fall and 

 placing the large end of the spindle on the middle of the 

 bed-piece, with the sharpened end baited, inside the house. 

 On the end of the spindle we set the wedge-shaped end of 

 the standard, directly over the bed-piece, and gently lower- 

 ing the fall on its upper end, our trap is set. You see 

 that if any animal reaches in and tries to draw out the bait, 

 he will pull the inner end of the spindle toward the bed- 

 piece; the standard will be thrown off the spindle, and 

 down will come the fall on his neck or back. It is a very 

 merciful trap, killing its catch outright, and for that 

 reason I wish it was a surer one, but I never could get 

 anything to enter it but skunks and once a raccoon. And 

 now I will leave you to set your remainieg steel-traps, 

 and as many dead-falls as you please. 



Fortune smiles most benignly on my young trapper, and 

 two days later he comes home from making the rounds of 

 his traps, exultantly bearing a large male mink, whose 

 thick fur is as dark as mink ever wore, and now the 

 youngster's question is : "How shall I skin it, and how 

 stretch the skin ?" So with a keen edged knife we fall to, 

 he holding the legs, I skinning. Rip from the ball of this 

 hind foot down the inside of the leg, across just forward 

 of the vent, to the other ; then skin out the hind legs and 

 around the root of the tail. Turn the skin of the tail as 

 far as possible, then replace it, and slip it off the bone 

 without turning. Now strip the skin off to the fore legs, 

 which skin out carefully, then strip again to the head, 

 which must be skinned out, being all the while very care- 

 ful not to cut the skin. Now we will make our stretcher 

 of a nicely planed piece of pine, two feet and a half long, 

 three inches wide, and three-eighths of an inch thick. Cut 

 five or six inches of the end in a gradual rounding taper to 

 a point. Draw the skin on, wrong side out, the snout 

 holding on this point, stretching it as hard as you can ; 

 fasten it with several tacks at the tail end . When it is 

 thoroughly dry take it off the stretcher, turn it, shake it 

 well, and it is ready for market. Awahsoose. 



The Uses of Charcoal.— By keeping charcoal in a hog 

 pen there will be but little odor or disagreeable smell, sucl^ 

 as is usual. The hogs appear to thrive better and faster 

 than in a strong smelling sty. They will consume quite a 

 quantity, which undoubtedly does them good. Some should 

 be powdered, and some left in chunks; the powdered ab- 

 sorbs the wet, and the hogs will eat the lumps as thej' de- 

 sire it. The refuse makes a most excellent manure for 

 omens or any vegetables. By putting a small quantity in 

 the horse stable every day under the horse, it will absorb 

 the wet and keep the "stable perfectly sweet and whole- 

 some. As it is removed from the stable keep it under 

 shelter, dry it, and sow it on the meadows; the increase in 

 the crop will pay for the trouble. Cow stables will re- 

 ceive the same benefit and produce the same results. It is 

 also invaluable in the poultry house in keeping it whole 

 some for the fowls, and making a most valuable manure. 

 The fowls will consume a part of it, and are not so liable 

 to disease. It is also very desirable in the sheep pens or 

 yards. By putting a bushel or so of the powdered char- 

 coal down the water closet it will remove the disagreeable 

 smell which generally attends such places, and will re- 

 move the great objection there is to cleaning them out. 

 When charcoal is powdered and a little dropped into a po- 

 tato hill when planted, it will double the crop, and will im- 

 prove the quality beyond expectatiou. An objection to it 

 is that it is black and will blacken any person that handles 

 it. I have powdered it by pounding it on the barn floor, 

 and also by putting it through an old cider mill, but it is 

 undoubtedly dirty work any way you can fix it. But "he 

 that would catch fish must not mind getting wet. 

 — i, «*«» — 



■—Prof. Spencer F. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institute, 

 the United States Fishery Commissioner, obtained a special 

 award at the recent fluvial exhibition in Paris. 



— » 



GAME IN SEASON IN JANUARY. 



, « 



Hares, brown and gray. Wild duck, geese, brant, &c. 



FOR JT-OBIDA, 



Deer, Wild Turkey,Woodcock, Quail, Snipe, Ducks, and Wild Fowl. 



Game in Market .—-Ruffed grouse are still being re- 

 ceived in fair quantities, principally from Maine, and sell for 

 DO cents to $1 per pair; pinnated grouse (prairie chickens) 

 are still scarce, and bring $1.15 to $1.25 per pair; last year 

 at this time they were worth 75 cents . Quail are also 

 scarce, those in market purporting to be Western birds, 

 but if they could their little tales unfold,' we should prob- 

 ably have exposed a wretched list of violated game laws. 

 Canvas back ducks are worth $1-50 to $2 50 per pair; red- 

 heads $1.25 to $1.50; mallards, 75 cents to $1.25; widgeon, 

 75 cents to $1; black ducks, 75 cents to $1; sprig-tails, 60 

 to 75 cents; broad bills, 75 cents; teal, 75 cents to $1; 

 brant, $1.50; geese, $1 to $1.50. Southern birds have been 

 coming into market in rather bad condition, which ac- 

 counts for the variation in price. A few green-winged teal 

 have been received from Norfolk. Hares and rabbits are 

 very abundant at 50 to 60 cents per pair; venison is worth 



20 to 25 cents per pound. 



Pennsylvania — Pittsburgh, January Sd. — Ruffed grouse 

 is the only bird that has been plenty with us this year, and 

 they so wild as to render choke bores almost useless. Quail 

 have been scarce, and, fortunately for the supply next 

 year, the second brood did not get large enough to kill 

 until the season was more than half gone. Augustine. 



— Greenville, Penn., is situated on the Shenango River, 

 sixty-three miles south of Erie, and eighty-six miles north 

 of Pittsburgh, in Mercer county, and contains about 4,000 

 inhabitants. The Erie and Pittsburgh Railway runs 

 through the western portion of it, and the Atlantic and 

 Great Western Railway through the eastern portion. On 

 the 24th December last Messrs. J. T. Nelson, Nelson H. 

 Camp, Jack Holmes, and 'Top" Mills, bagged nineteen 

 grouse, four quail, and six rabbits on good shooting ground 

 about eight miles distant from Atlantic Station, on the A. 

 and G. W. R. R. There is a good hotel at Greenville, kept 

 by Fred Grubbe. 



South Carolina — Columbia, January 3d. — The weather 

 is warm for this month, and consequently ducks are now 

 scarce; but a week ago, when there was a freeze up, mal- 

 lard, teal, and Summer ducks were plentiful. One gentle- 

 man killed eight out of ten mallards, and another four with 

 one barrel. Partridges can be found in laige coveys within 

 a mile of town; there never were more. Rabbits are plen- 

 tiful and swamp hares are occasionally killed. Deer can 

 be found by going ten or twelve miles in the country; a 

 good many have been killed this year. Doves are here in 

 numberless droves. The Saluda River is filled with geese, 

 but on account or their being out on the rocks in the river 

 not many of them are killed. E. J. S. 



Florida — Pensacola, December 80.' h.— I cannot honestly 

 recommend tourists to visit Pensacola, either for its hunt- 

 ing or fishing, as there are so much better grounds to be 

 found in other parts of the State. It is very good here, 

 however, on the other side of the bay, in what is known 

 as the Live Oak Reservation. An acquaintance of mine 

 killed seven fine' deer there last Saturday; besides, numer- 

 ous turkeys and ducks have been brought in. Still, when 

 compared with Sarasota or Southwest Florida, the hunting- 

 is rather poor. Should any of your friends happen this 

 way, please send them to me*, and I will see that they 

 have good guides, with dogs, boats, etc., at reasonable 

 rates . S. 



Kansas— Brookville, Saline county, January 4th. — I wish 

 to say a few words in behalf of the country situated be- 

 yond where farmers have men arrested lor carrying a gun, 

 and then turn in and trap and net the chickens and quail 

 •all Winter and ship them East. I think there is no finer 

 chicken shooting in the United States than we have here. 

 Quail have always been very plenty till this year; but Hie 

 uncommonly severe Winter of '74 and '75 thinned them 

 out so much that we have made an agreement here among 

 the "shootists" not to kill any quail this year, and I believe 

 it has been religiously lived up to so far, although some of 

 us have had several sore temptation/. Knowing that we 

 should have no quail shooting, we early turned our atten- 

 tion to hunting jack rabbits with greyhounds, and I must 

 say that we have had any quantity of sport. Everybody 

 here, nearly, has got a Texas pony (and no better saddle 

 horses can be found), and six of us have greyhounds. 

 Rabbits are very plenty, and if by chance we find a herd 

 of antelope, which we frequently do, then the sport is 

 right royal. Jack rabbits are harder to catch than ante- 

 lopes, but when taken they do not make as good a show 

 hanging to your saddles as the latter. S. C. W. 



— A pigeon match for $1,000 has been arranged between 

 Dr. Talbot, of this city, who won the sweepstakes open to 

 all comers, on New Year's day, at the Long Island Shoot- 

 ing Club, and William Hess, the champion of Pennsyl- 

 vania. The conditions are for each to shoot at fifty birds, 



21 yards rise, 80 yards boundary, with one ounce of shot, 

 with double-barreled guns, but only one barrel to be used 

 during the match. The contest is to take place at Burling- 

 ton, N. J., next Monday. 



— A match is also said to have been made for a similar 



stake, between the champions, Capt. Bogardus and Ira A. 



Paine. 



**•«• 



A GOOD SNIPE BAG. 



* — — 



Nicasio, Marin Co., Cal., January 1st, 1876. 

 Editor Forest akd Stream;— 



In the Forest and Stream of November 11th, your correspondent, 

 "Mortimer," gives an account of remarkable snipe shooting, made by 

 Mr. John E. Loveland, in New Jersey; he also wished to hear of large 

 scores made at same birds. A few years ago, while on a hunt for geese 

 and mallard in the lower part of Sacramento county, 1 found a large 

 number of snipe on ground lately burned ovei . In six and half hours I 

 bagged 109 snipe; using a No. 10 muzzle loader, and No. 5 shot, as I had 

 no other size with me; the wind blowing a strong. norther at the time. 

 I shot down the wind, using but one barrel, as I had no dog and had to 

 go direc.ly for each bird as soon as shot. I think with a breech loader 

 and a good retriever, 300 snipe could have been bagged by one man that 

 day. . Thomas, H. Estey. 



