Читать книгу New Ideas for American Boys; The Jack of All Trades - Daniel Carter Beard - Страница 38

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make very gentle and comical pets. One celebrated woodchuck-hunter had great success by using a stuffed woodchuck as a decoy. A very good substitute for a stuffed animal may be made of gray Canton flannel, stuffed with cotton.

Set your decoy up in plain view of the woodchuck’s hole, and sprinkle fresh clover around. Then conceal yourself behind the hole, and be ready with a strong ring-net on a pole to capture your game when it appears.

The watchful old fellow will see the decoy sitting on its haunches, and reasoning that where it is safe for one “chuck” it is safe for another, he will sally forth to enjoy the clover. Then the fun begins. You must jump between the woodchuck and his hole, and net him as best you can, after which transfer him to a meal-bag, and carry him to his cage.

Fig. 13.—The Wooden Box-Trap.—Dotted lines show arrangement inside. A is the trigger, or spindle, which passes through a hole in the rear end of the box. B is the catch with a ring slipped over its middle, to which a string is attached to hold open the trap-door when the trap is set. There is a notch in the back board of the trap at C, and another near the rear end of the trigger, in which the bevelled edges of the catch are caught and held in place by the string attached to the trap-door. Fig. 13 1/2 shows the details of Fig. 13. The box-trap is an old “stand-by” with the boys, is simple in construction, and can be made by any lad who can handle tools. This drawing was made from a trap built by a country lad, twelve years of age. A serviceable trap can be improvised from an old tin can, or, better still, one of those square tin boxes used so generally now for holding fancy groceries.

Woodchucks can run rapidly for eight or ten yards; then they have a habit of suddenly coming to a stop, assuming their favorite upright pose, and darting off again in another direction.

The Tin Can-Trap.—Make a door of a square or rectangular piece of tin. With a nail make two holes in the top of the door for the wire hinges (Fig. 14). With a heavy knife cut a doorway a trifle smaller than the door. Cut three slashes as shown in Fig. 15. Bend the two sides in as shown in Fig. 16, then hang the door with the wire hinges. Fig. 17 shows the door from the inside of the tin box, and Fig. 18 shows the same from the outside. The door, as may be readily seen, can be pushed up from the outside to admit the game, but when the prisoners attempt to get out they cannot push the door open, for the trap opens but one way. Do not leave space enough below the side-pieces for the animal to thrust his nose or paws under, or it may lift the door in this way and escape. If, as in the diagrams, it is necessary to cut a little above the bottom of the box, put a flat stone, or some similar object, inside for the side-pieces and the door to rest upon. Fig. 19 shows the manner of cutting the tin. Another door can be made by cutting a star in the tin, and then bending the pointed pieces in far enough to allow the game to squeeze through. The points will not allow anything to crawl out, however, and it must remain there until released (Fig. 20). These diagrams are given so that the young hunters may make their own traps, in case the ordinary mice and rat-traps to be found in shops are inaccessible.

June is the time to capture the young ones, as they play about their home hole.