There are a number of traps and snares that boys can make. Descriptions of these are to be found in books on amateur carpentry, manual training, and books for boys of various kinds. The illustrations in this chapter are intended to give a few suggestions.
MONEY AND RECREATION IN TRAPPING
I shall not attempt to go at this subject from a professional side, as I think no boys care to trap for a living. Whatever may be said about the boy having a gun in a thickly settled suburb, nothing can be offered against his trapping if he goes at it in an amateur way and with no intent to exterminate the animals (which only a shrewd trapper could do).
I will presume the boy to be attending a neighbouring school either on the edge of a city or in a town. Under these circumstances he must attend to his traps early in the morning or after school. At first there may be no more than enough money in it to cover the cost of traps, but nevertheless the recreation which it offers will appeal to the average boy. As his knowledge of animals becomes greater with time, he will get more and more pocket money.
When he starts in, the other boys may laugh at him and say that there is nothing to trap. In most cases they would make a big mistake, because there often are, on the edge of a city, more fur-bearing animals than in the surrounding country. This for the reason that the professional trapper is not present and most of the city boys do not know how to trap. There are, say, muskrats and an occasional mink along the rivers and streams. The swamps usually abound in muskrats. In the woods and fields are squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, opossums, and (in the North) woodchucks.
It is legitimate to catch the water animals in ordinary steel traps because, if set right, the captive is instantly drowned. For dry land the steel jaw-trap is not suitable, because it will rarely kill the animal, but cause him much suffering as it usually breaks his leg. Often in such case the trapper will only find a foot in his trap, the animal having gnawed or twisted his body free. Nevertheless any trap is humane which kills the animal instantly. There are many new traps on the market which will do this, but on account of their being patented and high-priced they are not extensively used. The traps which are most commonly used for this purpose are the deadfalls and snares.
The muskrat lives wherever there is a body of water. He feeds chiefly on vegetable matter which he obtains in the swamps or digs on the banks, although he frequently visits a cornfield or vegetable garden. Only in cases of extreme hunger, as happens when they are frozen in, have they been known to eat their own kin. In swamps they have houses made of rushes and twigs, standing in a rounded shape about two feet above the water.
To trap in the swamps one must have high rubber boots and if the water is deep a small boat is necessary. A home-made flat-bottomed canoe, made of canvas, will be found to answer the purpose admirably. Where it is shallow enough to use the boots, a long, heavy staff should be carried, as the mud is very often treacherous and interwoven with muskrat runways. I might as well say in the beginning that the intending trapper should take a friend into his confidence and the two set out to trap together, for in this way they can help each other out of difficulties. (My friend had to do some pretty stiff pulling once to get me out of a mud hole into which I had recklessly plunged, having only in my mind to get to my traps quickly.)
Along the rivers the muskrats live in holes in the banks. In trapping in such places one may walk along the bank or use a boat, setting the traps in the entrances of houses or in the runs.