When he does this once he will come again and the Indian hunter, knowing this, at once sets a snare for "Mister Cat." Sometimes when the thief has left a portion of the rabbit, a branch house is built up against the trunk of some tree, the remains of the rabbit placed at the back and the snare set at the doorway.
BAIT SET SNARE.
A stout birch stick is cut about three or four feet long and lodged on a forked stick at each side of the door and about two and a half feet high. To the middle of this crossbar the end of the twine is tied; No. 9 Holland is generally used, or No. 6 thread cod line. This is gummed by rubbing balsam branches up and down the twine in the same way as the bear snare. The noose is held in shape in one or two places at each side by a light strand of wood or blade of grass and a couple of small dry sticks are placed upright under the snare to prevent the cat from passing beneath.
The loop is almost as large as for a bear and as high from the ground, if not higher. The lynx has long legs and carries his head straight in front of him and takes a snare by pushing thru it, or by a rush, never crouching and then springing.
As the resort of rabbits is a young growth of country, there are also lynx in the greatest numbers. Rabbits and partridges are their principal food. When the Indian enters a new piece of country to set rabbit snares to support his wife and family and sees signs of lynx, he combines the two kinds of hunting and as he goes along, once in a while, he bars his snowshoe track by placing a lynx snare in the way. The lynx are fond of the smell of castor, as indeed are most animals, so the hunter rubs a little on a tree at each side of his snare for the cat to rub against when he comes that way.
The snare is never tied to anything immovable, as they are very powerful and would break the twine. As soon as the noose tightens the cross piece comes readily away from the supports and the cat springs to one side. The stick, however, either knocks him a blow or gets tangled in his legs. This he tries several times, but with the same result, that bothersome stick is always hanging to his neck. About the last effort he makes to free himself is to ascend a tree. This, however, is nearly always fatal, for after he gets up a certain distance this trouble some stick is sure to get fast back of some limb. The lynx by this time, having become a pretty cross cat, makes matters worse and the hunter finds him hanging dead, at times twenty or thirty feet from the earth.