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duction of fumigant for its disposal. The door should be open when the 
trap is set to provide ventilation. Bait (fish is probably the best) is placed 
well back in the trap. A little catnip will make it more enticing. When 
the captive is a vagrant cat or other animal that should be destroyed, an 
ounce of carbon disulphide may be poured onto a wad of cotton batting 
and inserted into the trap. This will produce fumes that will asphyxiate 
quickly and humanely. After carbon disulphide has been applied the trap 
should be kept tightly closed to confine the gas. Carbon disulphide is 
highly inflammable and explosive, and its fumes are offensive and poisonous 
if inhaled in a closed place. It is, therefore, advisable to use it only in the 
open air. The use of chloroform as a killing agent is preferred by many 
persons, and it may be passed down into the trap through a tube from a 
scent spray. 
The various fur-breeders’ journals and fur-farmers’ outfitters adver- 
tise numerous traps for catching beavers, muskrats, mink, marten, skunks, 
and other fur-bearing mammals alive for breeding purposes, blit the 
general collector will not as a rule care to keep an assortment of all the new 
specialties in this line (See Ashbrook, “Fur-Farming for Profit,” 1928). 
Vernon Bailey (1921-1932) describes some simple devices for catching 
small mammals alive which will be useful for any field collector. Mr. 
Bailey stated that with a pair of pliers and a small coil of spring wire he 
could go to any garbage heap where there were plenty of tin cans and make 
as many mouse traps as he needed in an hour or two. 
The simplest trap is an inverted bowl, tin can, pan, bucket, or box. 
A light bowl may need a stone on top for weight. A trigger, rounded at 
one end and pointed at the other, is cut out of a thin board or shingle. 
Fasten some bait to the pointed end and place the rounded end under the 
edge of the bowl and the baited end about the middle underneath. The 
mouse wiggles the bait and the bowl drops over him. A paper, tin, or 
bag may be slid under the bowl and the mouse picked up. A tin can 
makes a good live trap. Cut a piece of tin to fit the inside of the open 
end. Hinge it with a wire loop at one edge so it can swing in and not out. 
Fasten a springy wire to the lid and to the outside of the can so as to 
act as a spring that will pull the lid shut. Push the lid in and place a 
baited spindle under its lower edge to hold it open until the mouse wiggles 
the bait. Then the spindle drops and the door snaps shut with the mouse 
inside. A still simpler trap may be made by cutting a hole in one end 
of a tin box and placing a sloping hinged door inside that easily lifts up 
for the mouse to enter and drops down behind him. 
Some small mammals are easily caught by sinking a deep tin can, jar, 
or bucket in the ground along a runway, leaving the top just level with 
the surface of the ground. 
If a garbage hole is dug for camp slops it is well to look into it now 
and then for small mammals that may come to investigate a new source 
of food supply. Mr. Stuart Criddle, of Treesbank, Manitoba, writes that 
he frequently uses pitfalls for catching mice, making them round, about 14 
inches across at the surface, 24 to 30 inches deep, and larger at the bottom 
than the top, so that the mice have no chance of climbing out; also that 
sunken tins or glass jars filled half full of water give good results in dry 
