ABORIGINAL USE OF WOOD IN NEW YORK 



179 



Figure 123 shows this snare. Van der Donck mentioned a snare 

 for taking turkeys: 



The Indians take many in snares, when the weather changes in 

 winter. Then they lay bulbous roots, which the turkeys are fond 

 of, in the small rills and streams of water; which the birds take 

 up, when they are ensnared and held until the artful Indian takes 

 up the turkey as his prize. Van der Donck, 5: 172 



The mode of driving deer between lines of stakes and brush, into 

 a pound or narrow opening, has been often described. The town 

 of Poundridge N. Y. was called after a deer pound of this kind, 

 situated at the foot of a high ridge south of the village of that 

 name. David Cusick described the same thing: "They make a 

 long brush fence and remove the leaves on both sides of the fence, 

 the deer will follow the path ; the person can easily kill the game." 

 Beanchamp, p.35 



Champlain gave both a picture and description of this mode of 

 hunting as he saw it in the Huron country in the winter of 161 5-16, 

 but the work must have been great if his estimates are correct. 

 He said: 



They went into the woods, near a little forest of fir-trees, where 

 they made an enclosure in the form of a triangle, closed on two 

 sides, open on one. This enclosure was made of great palisades 

 of wood crowded together, of the height of 8 to 9 feet, & in length 

 about 1500 paces on each side, at the end of which triangle was a 

 small enclosure which continually contracts, covered in part by 

 branches. . . They go into the woods about half a league 

 from the said enclosure, separated one from another about 80 paces, 

 each having two sticks which they strike together, marching slowly 

 in this order till they arrive at the enclosure. Champlain, 2 : 538-39 



Then the deer are driven through the converging lines into the 

 pound. The branches keep them from leaping out there, and all 

 are killed. In the Iroquois country deer were so abundant that this 

 was not used, and it seems to have been confined here to the south- 

 eastern part of the State. A large, deep and almost circular 

 depression near Unadilla may have served for such a pound. Near 

 the pond in the center stone walls have been thrown up, as though 

 to shelter hunters, and a graded way from above leads to these. 



