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drill a small hole through one of the rear corners of the wooden base. 
Rabbits may be taken with snares of sinew or fine copper wire, and lynx 
and coyote with heavier wire snares, usually set with a spring pole to 
jerk the animal up and strangle it. 
Several makes of wooden-base traps are on the market and are sold 
almost everywhere in two sizes, mouse traps and rat traps. The rat size 
is quite suitable for rats, chipmunks, squirrels, weasels, and the like, but 
has such strong springs that smaller mammals are often cut in two. The 
ordinary mouse trap is deadly enough as a simple mouse-killer, but has the 
disadvantage of being too short and narrow for the scientific collector. A 
mouse or shrew too often merely has its nose inside when the treadle is 
touched, and the spring comes down and crushes the skull. As the skull 
of a scientific specimen is as desirable as the skin, the “Museum Special 
model trap" (Figure 3) has been devised for scientific collecting. It is 
Figure 3. “Museum Special model trap” for small mammals. 
intermediate in size between the mouse and rat traps, with width of jaw 
about 2$ inches and spring of about the same strength as that of the 
ordinary mouse trap. Such a trap usually must be made to order. The 
“out-o -sight” and other auto-baited traps depend for their attractive- 
ness on having the wooden treadle saturated with aniseed oil or some 
other aromatic oil which is very permanent and apparently does not 
hinder the effectiveness of other baits. 
Most of the small traps have wooden bases, and these warp, particu- 
larly the cheaper grades, when used on damp ground, or when wet by dew 
or rain. This can be prevented by dipping the wooden bases into hot 
