Chapter IX: Bird-Catching with Traps, Etc (1)

Yet another of the springle traps which I have seen used with very great success for the capture of flesh-eating birds is shown in Fig. 11. A and B are two sapling oak or ash-trees, growing near each other. Two holes are bored in A with a large gimlet; at C, in B, a wire loop is attached, and the loop E is passed through the upper perforation, as shown. At D a piece of cord with a round knot in it is passed through after B is bent toward A. F is a piece of wood, the point of which is shaped like a blunt cone, and this is sustained on the knot in the position shown by the spring of B, being similar, in fact, to the tongue of a wooden mole-trap, shown in a previous number. On this piece of wood is tied a fresh lump of meat, or a pigeon’s egg may be blown and stuck on. Indeed, any bait may be used, providing it is not too heavy. The bird, of course, pecks strongly at it through the loop E, and is instantly caught, or if it attempts to alight, which is often the case, the noose catches it alive by the legs. My drawing is a rough one, but sufficiently explains what is meant.

I have thus given a brief sketch of what boys can do in bird-catching with no more expense than a few cents--if we except the net, and that need not cost much if one is disposed to make it. There are many other traps which are variously successful. There is, for example, the trap-cage, which contains on one side a decoy bird, and a very useful one it is, and easily procured from a bird-fancier. Then there is the old sieve and string and brick trap, about which no boy needs to be told. I have taken twenty and thirty wild fowl in a night by baiting with pieces of sheep’s lights or lungs a large eel-hook. Then again for kingfishers there is a round spring-trap, which catches them by the legs, and is cruel therefore. Herons may be taken on a baited hook--the bait-fish, of course. When all is said and done, however, for general bird-catching, where sport and not torture is the means here set forth are decidedly the most satisfactory.

First and foremost, however, if you would be successful, take this practical counsel to yourself. Study the natures and habits of the birds; the droppings and footprints will always indicate a favorite resort. Why, I took a dozen birds the other day with half a dozen of Figure 9 traps in less than four hours by simply setting and resetting in the right places, and then retiring out of sight.

And not merely out of sight, let me tell the tyro, but out of the range of the sense of smell. Never get to windward of any birds if you are intent on catching them. It is a curious fact amongst the lower animals, especially those brought under domestication, that they perceive and appreciate at its value against themselves the presence of man by smell as well as sight. Creatures of prey, from the hatred with which they are held, seem to possess this faculty in the highest degree. Were it not so, indeed, the struggle for existence with them would soon end, and many at least of the species--whether fish, flesh or fowl--would become extinct as the dodo.

The bird-lime itself is the next consideration under this heading. I do not advise any boy to make it himself, but if he nevertheless chooses to do so, here is a recipe which will produce a very good “lime.” Half a pint of Linseed-oil should be put into an iron pot and carefully boiled over the fire for four hours, or, in fact, till it thickens sufficiently, stirring it repeatedly the while with a stick. The oil is smooth when it boils. In order to ascertain when it is done take out the stick and immerse it in water, after which see if it sticks to the fingers. If it does, the oil is ready to be poured into cold water, and thereafter placed in little flat tin boxes--the most convenient receptacles, as they fit in the waistcoat pocket, and can be used as required.

Birdlime is also made from holly bark, but according to the directions given in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” the process is much too troublesome for boys, and as one can buy birdlime enough to stick a flock of rooks together for a few pence from a professional bird-catcher, life may be considered too short for that process at this time. As I am some distance from a town, much less a professional bird-catcher, I make mine as above, and find it little if any inferior to that I have been in the habit of buying.

During winter time, when frost and snow cover the earth, birdlime is very useful, for at that time the “clap” net is of very little use. A good plan then is to sweep a bare place anywhere near a plantation or wooded garden, or even in the farm-yards, and having anointed a few dozen wheat ears with the straw attached--or rather, having anointed the straw for about a foot nearest the ear--to spread them about in the patch. The birds will attempt to take the ears away, and will so get limed and drop to the ground. You must very quickly pick them up or you will lose some, as their struggles not infrequently release them, at least partially, and they flutter out of reach.

Sometimes it will be found that a few handfuls of oats, barley or wheat thrown down where the limed straws are will be of service when they do not seem to care for the wheat ears themselves. There is the probability of the little fellows coming in contact with the ears, and so getting limed. These methods are chiefly applicable, as I have said, to cold weather.

A different mode of procedure may be practiced when the weather is very hot. Cut, say, a hundred twigs of some smooth, thin wood, such as withy, and after liming, stick them down by the side of any rivulet of water near woody growths, and of course not near a large tract of water such as a lake or river. Cover over the stream with brush or fern, so that the birds can come only by where your limed twigs are placed. I have had remarkable sport in this way when the birds have been coming to drink during the forenoon and afternoon.

I tried an experiment for rooks with bird-lime some little time ago. We all know that in winter, during a thaw, rooks will frequent pastures in great numbers, especially if cattle be present. About fifty yards to the west of where I am now sitting is a long waterside pasture, and thousands of rooks could be seen digging right lustily. Rooks are too strong and wily to be limed in the usual way with bristles or twigs, so I made some paper cones--funnel-shaped, you know, like the grocers use for packing sugar--and anointed the inside with bird-lime, sticking also a few grains of wheat round the inner side. The result was ridiculous in the extreme. After scattering a few grains of corn about and placing about a dozen of these limed brown-paper funnels in a likely manner, I retired to a distance, and with my field-glass watched. A flock soon found out the scattered grain, and one after the other the cones were inspected, but for some time no one ventured to do more. Presently, however, after the loose grain was apparently all eaten, one of the wily birds had the temerity to poke his head inside a cone. The result was much to his evident surprise, for the cone stuck tight, and there he was tumbling and attempting to fly with a foolscap on which blindfolded him, and which stuck tight enough to allow me time to go up and release the poor fellow. I did not kill him, for old rook pie is by no means palatable. I tried this plan for a heron which continually frequented a little pond wherein my last year’s trout are kept, but did not succeed in capturing him, though he took both the cone and fish used for a bait away somehow. Anyhow it has most thoroughly frightened my gentleman, for I have not seen him since.

One fine morning some time since I had a delightful ramble with a quaint old character living hereabouts who gets his living by mole and bird catching. Old “Twiddle” he is familiarly called. One faculty he has, and that is a natural love for nature’s works and a gift of observation which has, perhaps almost unknown to himself, forced him into being a natural naturalist, if I may so use the expression. He can tell any bird on the wing by its flight, he knows all the fancies--some of them old, imagined fancies--of bees, each fly as it flits from the water’s edge has a name, though far from being that given it by science. No matter for that; a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and old Twiddle can tell something of its life-history. Well, Twiddle and I started on our ramble, and this was how he was equipped. A cage containing a beautiful little cock gold-finch duly and comfortably furnished with food and water, and protected from the sharp though clear air of the bright November day by means of an old silk handkerchief. Some dozen or two of prepared bristles, a small box of birdlime, and a “dummy” or stuffed gold-finch set up on a branch of wood with one end sharpened so that the latter could be stuck in the ground and then the bird retained in any position deemed desirable. The bristles were of the best shoemaker’s kind, and, were arranged in bunches of three on a stout carpet-needle.

By the by I have improved on these by substituting a fish-hook straightened (see Fig. 6). To do this take an ordinary eel-hook and make it red-hot in the gas or candle flame, holding it the while by means of a pair of pliers. It can be readily straightened after this, whether hot or cold, as the heating softens the wire. The utility of the barb lies in the fact that the bird cannot by any chance fly away with the bristle or lose it for you in its struggles, because of the barb’s holding power when thrust into the branch of a tree, etc.

But to return. Chatting about this and that we journeyed along till after old Twiddle had craned his neck over a ledge to regard the other side of a field he announced our walk for the present ended. On creeping through a hole in the hedge this field turned out to be a piece of evidently waste water meadow, so-called because the crops are, as it were, manured with water from the neighboring river, and a perfect little forest of thistles with their downy heads swaying in the breeze indicated the probable presence of the goldfinch. Some thorn-trees grew in a row down the center of the field, and hither and thither the sparrows flitted amongst their branches busily chattering the news of sparrowdom. But I saw no finches. “Twiddle,” said I, “where are the goldfinches?” “Ye’ll see where they be, sir, presently,” he answered, setting down the caged bird near the largest of the thorns. “Now, Billy,” he added, speaking to the bird, “crow away,” and with that he removed the handkerchief. Billy needed no second bidding, and his little throat quivered and trembled with the glad song which came thrilling forth.

Twiddle now placed the dummy bird just beneath a branch of the thorn close to the cage and so as to be easily seen, and all around it and round the cage the bristles carefully limed were stuck. All was now ready. We retired behind the hedge where we could see and not be seen.

Presently the singing was answered and we saw a gold-finch hopping about amongst the branches of the thorn. Suddenly it caught sight of the dummy bird and with a pleased swiftness flew towards it. In another second it had touched a limed bristle and was rolling over and over hopelessly liming its wings with every fresh bristle it touched.

Very carefully the little chap was dusted with a little fine earth to mitigate the stickiness and placed in another cage which the bird-catcher always carries for the wild birds. It is flat and long and well supplied with food and water; in the upper part of it is a hole sufficiently large to admit the hand, and to the two edges of this hole is tacked the leg of an old stocking, which falls inwards. Then the bird can easily be placed inside, but cannot escape, because the folds of the stocking fold together.

We caught five there and, as the market value of the birds was about twenty-five cents, Twiddle, it must be owned, had a very profitable morning’s work. Let me express a hope that my readers may be so successful.

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The Art of Stretching and Curing Skins.

The market value of skins are greatly affected by the care used in skinning and curing. We take the following from The Trapper’s Guide, the best known authority on these matters:

In drying skins it is important that they should be stretched tight like a strained drum head. This can be done after a fashion by simply nailing them flat on a wide board or a barn door. But this method, besides being impracticable on a large scale in the woods (where most skins have to be cured) is objectionable, because it exposes only one side of the pelt to the air. The stretchers that are generally approved and used by good trappers, are of three kinds, adapted to the skins of different classes of animals, and shall call them the board-stretcher, the bow-stretcher, and the hoop-stretcher, and will describe them, indicating the different animals to which each is adapted.

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THE BOARD-STRETCHER.--This contrivance is made in the following manner: Prepare a board of bass-wood or other light material, two feet three inches long, three inches and a half wide at one end, and two inches and an eighth at the other, and three-eighths of an inch thick. Chamfer it from the center to the sides almost to an edge. Round and chamfer the small end about an inch up on the sides. Split this board through the center with a knife or saw. Finally, prepare a wedge of the same length and thickness, one inch wide at the large end, and tapering to three-eighths of an inch at the small end, to be driven between the halves of the board. This is a stretcher suitable for a mink or a marten. Two larger sizes, with similar proportions, are required for the larger animals. The largest size, suitable for the full grown otter or wolf, should be five feet and a half long, seven inches wide at the large end when fully spread by the wedge, and six inches at the small end. An intermediate size is required for the fisher, raccoon, fox, and some other animals, the proportions of which can be easily figured out.

These stretchers require that the skin of the animal should not be ripped through the belly, but should be stripped off whole. This is done in the following manner: Commence with the knife at the hind feet, and slit down to the vent. Cut around the vent, and strip the skin from the bone of the tail with the help of the thumb nail or a split slick. Make no other slits in the skin, except in the case of the otter, whose tail requires to be split, spread, and tacked on to the board. Peel the skin from the body by drawing it over itself, leaving the fur side inward.

In this condition the skin should be drawn on to the split board, (with the back on one side and the belly on the other) to its utmost length, and fastened with tacks or by notches cut in the edge of the board, and then the wedge should be driven between the two halves. Finally, make all fast by a tack at the root of the tail, and another on the opposite side. The skin is then stretched to its utmost capacity, as a boot-leg is stretched by the shoe-maker’s “tree,” and it may be hung away in the proper place, by a hole in one end of the stretcher, and left to dry.

A modification of this kind of stretcher, often used in curing the skins of the muskrat and other small animals, is a simple board, without split or wedge, three-sixteenths of an inch thick, twenty inches long, six inches wide at the large end, and tapering to five and a half inches at six inches from the small end, chamfered and rounded as in the other cases. The animal should be skinned as before directed, and the skin drawn tightly on to the board and fastened with about four tacks. Sets of these boards, sufficient for a muskrat campaign, can easily be made and transported. They are very light and take up but little room in packing, thirty-two of them making but six inches in thickness.

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THE BOW STRETCHER.--The most common way of treating the muskrat is to cut off its feet with a hatchet, and rip with a knife from between the two teeth in the lower jaw, down the belly, about two inches below where the fore-legs come out. Then the skin is started by cutting around the lips, eyes, and ears, and is stripped over the body with the fur side inward. Finally a stick of birch, water-beech, ironwood, hickory, or elm, an inch in diameter at the butt, and three feet and a half long, is bent into the shape of an oxbow and shoved into the skin, which is drawn tight, and fastened by splitting down a sliver in the bow and drawing the skin of the lip into it.

This method is too common to be easily abolished, and is tolerable when circumstances make it necessary; but the former method of stretching by a tapering board, in the case of muskrats as well as other small animals, is much the best. Skins treated in that way keep their proper shape, and pack better than those stretched on bows, and in the long run boards are more economical than bows, as a set of them can be used many times, and will last several years, whereas bows are seldom used more than once, being generally broken in taking out.

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THE HOOP STRETCHER.--The skins of large animals, such as the beaver and the bear, are best dried by spreading them, at full size, in a hoop. For this purpose, a stick of hickory or other flexible wood should be cut, long enough to entirely surround the skin when bent. (If a single stick long enough is not at hand, two smaller ones can be spliced together.) The ends should be brought around, lapped, and tied with a string or a withe of bark. The skin should be taken from the animal by ripping from the lower front teeth to the vent, and peeling around the lips, eyes, and ears, but without ripping up the legs. It should then be placed inside the hoop and fastened at opposite sides, with twine or bark, till all loose parts are taken up, and the whole stretched so that it is nearly round and as tight as a drum-head. When it is dry it may be taken from the hoop, and is ready for packing and transportation.

This is the proper method of treating the skin of the deer. Some prefer it for the wolf and raccoon. In many cases the trapper may take his choice between the hoop and the board method. One or the other methods will be found satisfactory for curing all kinds of skins.

Dressing and Tanning Skins and Furs.

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DRESSING SKINS WITH FUR WOOL ON.--The cheapest and readiest as well as the best method of dressing skins for use with the hair or wool on, is to first scrape off all the fat with a knife rather blunt on the edge, so as not to cut holes into the hide, upon a round smooth log. The log for convenience sake should have a couple of legs in one end, like a tressle; the other end should rest upon the ground.

After the fat is well cleaned off, take the brains of the animal, or the brains of any other recently killed, and work them thoroughly into the hide. This renders the hide pliable. Then to preserve from the ravages of insects scatter on it some powdered alum and a little saltpeter. If the hair side has become greasy, a little weak lye will take it out. Sheep-skins may be dressed in the same way, though the wool should be cleaned with soapsuds before using the brains. Another way, but more expensive, is to use a paste made of the yolk of eggs and whiting instead of brains, working it in the same way, letting it dry and brushing off the whiting. Then add the powdered alum as before. Deer-skins and even small calf-skins are often tawed as the process is called with the hair on for garments. If it is desired to give the deer-skin a yellow color, yellow ocher or chrome yellow may be used in combination with the brains or yolks of eggs and afterwards brushed off.

If it is simply desired to preserve skins until they are sold, it is only necessary to dry them thoroughly. If the weather should be damp and warm, salt the flesh side slightly with fine salt.

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WITHOUT THE WOOL OR HAIR.--Sheep-skin, deer-skin, dog-skin, calf-skin, &c., for gloves, &c., are also tawed, but the hair must be taken off. The skins are first soaked in warm water, scraped on the flesh side to get off fat, and hung in a warm room until they begin to give a slight smell of hartshorn. The wool or fur then comes off rapidly. The hair side should now be thoroughly scraped against the hair. The skin is next soaked two or three weeks in weak lime water, changing the water two or three times. Then they are brought out again, scraped smooth and trimmed. Then rinsed in clean water, then soaked in wheat bran and water for two or three weeks. After this they are well stirred around in pickle of alum, salt and water. Then they are thrown again into the bran and water for two or three days. Then stretched and dried somewhat in a warm room. After this they are soaked in warm water and then worked or trodden on in a trough or pail filled with yolk of eggs, salt, alum, flour and water, beaten to a froth. They are finally stretched and dried in an airy room, and last of all smoothed with a warm smoothing iron. This makes the beautiful leather we see in gloves, military trimmings, &c. The proportions for the egg paste are as follows: 3-1/2 pounds salt, 8 pounds alum, 21 pounds wheat flour and yolks of nine dozen eggs. Make a paste with water, dissolving first the alum and salt. A little of this paste is used as wanted with a great deal of water.

Chamois skin and deer skins not wanted for gloves are similarly treated up to the point of treating with egg paste. Instead of using this process, they are oiled on the hair side with very clean animal oil, rolled into balls and thrown into the trough of a fulling mill, well beaten two or three hours, aired, re-oiled, beaten again and the process repeated a third time. They are then put into a warm room until they begin to give out a decided smell, then scoured in weak lye to take out superfluous grease. Here the intention is merely to get a thick felt-like skin of good color, a nicely grained surface is not required as in gloves. The skins are finally rinsed, wrung out, stretched and dried, and when nearly dry, slightly rub with a smooth, hard, round stick.

These are the fine processes. A dried skin oiled so as to become smooth and pliable will retain the hair or wool a considerable time.

Or it may be made more durable where the color of the flesh side is no object by scraping, washing in soapsuds and then putting directly into the tan pit. For ordinary purposes rabbit, squirrel and other small skins can be efficiently preserved with the hair by the application of powdered alum and fine salt, put on them when fresh, or if not fresh by dampening them first. Squirrel skins when wanted without the hair will tan very well in wheat bran tea, the fat and hair having been previously removed by soaking in lime-water and scraping. Old tea leaves afford tannin enough for small skins, but they give a color not nearly so pleasant as bran. Almost any of the barks afford tannin enough for small skins--willow, pine, poplar, hemlock of course, sumach, etc.

Coloring or Dyeing Skins and Furs.

Furs are dyed by dealers, to suit some fashion, to conceal defects or to pass off inferior furs for better ones.

The best way is to brush the dye over the fur with a good sponge, brushing with the hair. As a matter of course, you can only dye them of a darker color than they are, and retain the handsome lustrous look peculiar to fur. They may be bleached, but the process leaves the fur looking like coarse flax or even hemp.

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BLUE.--Sulphate of indigo, (soluble indigo, sold by all druggists,) is the readiest and best to get a blue with. Furs are never dyed blue for sale, for that would be spoiling a white fur, but sheep-skins are. The skin should be dipped several times in a bath of hot alum water, allowed to drain, and then dipped into a solution of sulphate of indigo and water, with a few drops of sulphuric acid added, this gives a pale blue. Aniline blue is very fine, and dyeing with it is very simple. A solution of the color in water is made, a hot solution, and the skin put in all at once, (if a part of the skin is put in first that part will be darkest, so quick is the absorption of these colors). Fancy sheep-skin mats are colored blue, red, green, and yellow, and have a ready sale when they are new.

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BLACK.--The best black is obtained by first dyeing the skin a blue. Then boil one-quarter pound gall nuts, powdered, and one and one-quarter ounces of logwood, in three gallons of water. If the flesh side is to be blue, while the fur or wool is another, this decoction must be sponged on.

Get the wool or hair thoroughly impregnated with this and then add one-quarter pound copperas to the dye and go over the fur or wool many times with the sponge. The process above given will answer without previous blueing, but the black is not so brilliant. Another “home-made” dye which will answer for dyeing clothes a black, as well as sheep-skins, is this: Just make a bath of eight ounces of bichromate of potash, six ounces alum, four ounces fustic; boil in water enough to cover five pounds of yarn, cloth or a single sheep-skin. Make another bath of four pounds of logwood, four ounces each bar wood and fustic, or eight ounces fustic; same amount of boiling water as last. Stir the goods well around in the first bath, keeping the water hot for an hour; then work it in the second bath the same length of time. Take them and wring them; then, adding one-quarter pound of copperas to the last bath, put the goods in again and give them a good stirring. This is a good black dye for wool goods or furs, but not for silks or cottons.

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RED.--Furs of course are never dyed red, at least in this country. Sheep-skins might be dyed with madder or cochineal, but in the former case, the skin would of necessity be boiled with the dye, as that is necessary in using madder. Cochineal would be expensive and require much working, while as brilliant reds and purples may be got from the aniline colors, dissolved in moderately warm water, the skum taken off, and skin dipped. These colors are the cheapest, too, as they go very far. But always have the wool as free from grease as possible by working in weak hot lye or hot soapsuds.

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YELLOW.--Can be got on sheep-skins with black oak bark, (quercitron bark) old fustic, annotta, and Persian (also called French) berries. The skin should be previously dipped into a hot bath of alum, cream of tartar or spirit of tin, about two ounces to the gallon. About one-half pound of annotta, or a pound of the other articles, are enough for a single skin. If you wish to use fustic, be particular to ask for old fustic, as what is known in the trade as young fustic, is a different article and gives a different color. There is also now an aniline yellow which works like the other colors.

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GREEN.--Dye first blue as explained above, then pass through a yellow dye, until you get the shade required. An alum bath, cream of tartar, or spirits of tin, as above, must be used before the blue is given.

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PRESERVATION OF FURS.--While in use furs should be occasionally combed. When not wanted, dry them first, then let them cool, and mix among them bitter apples from the druggists, in small muslin bags, sewing them in several folds of linen, carefully turned in at the edges and kept from damp. Camphor or pepper used in the same manner, will have a similar effect. Well cleaned furs are much less liable to be attacked by moths, than those affording rich repasts of dried flesh, though no furs are absolutely safe without great watchfulness. Wrapping well in good brown paper and keeping in a tight paper box, are all helps to the preservation of furs. Sunshine and fresh air kill the fur and wool moth grub. Therefore taking out the furs occasionally and airing, sunning and beating them is necessary.

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TO TAN MUSKRAT SKINS WITH THE FUR ON.--First for soaking, to 10 gallons of cold soft water add 8 parts of wheat bran, 1/2 pint of old soap, 1 ounce of borax; by adding 2 ounces of sulphuric acid, the soaking may be done in one-half the time. If the hides have not been salted, add a pint of salt. Green hides should not be soaked more than 8 or 10 hours. Dry ones should soak till very soft.

For tan liquor, to ten gallons warm soft water add 1/2 bushel bran; stir well and let stand in a warm room till it ferments. Then add slowly 2-1/2 pounds sulphuric acid; stir all the while. Muskrat hides should remain in about 4 hours. Then take out and rub with a fleshing knife--an old chopping knife with the edge taken off will do. Then work it over a beam until entirely dry.

Some Additional Valuable Miscellaneous Information Useful Alike to the Hunter, Trapper and Angler.

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HINTS TO TRAPPERS.--The skins of animals trapped are always valued higher than those shot, as shot not only make holes, but frequently plow along the skin, making furrows, as well as shaving off the fur. To realize the utmost for skins they must be taken care of, and also cleaned and prepared properly. Newhouse gives these general rules derived from experience.

1. Be careful to visit your traps often enough, so that the skin will not have time to get tainted.

2. As soon as possible after the animal is dead and dry, attend to the skinning and curing.

3. Scrape off all superfluous flesh and fat, and be careful not to go so deep as to cut the fiber of the skin.

4. Never dry a skin by the fire or in the sun, but in a cool, shady place, sheltered from rain. If you use a barn door for a stretcher (as boys sometimes do), nail the skin on the inside of the door.

5. Never use preparations of any kind in curing skins, nor even wash them in water, but simply stretch and dry them as they are taken from the animal.

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TO DRESS BEAVER SKINS.--You must rip the skin the same as you would a sheep. Stretch it in all ways as much as possible; then it is to be dressed with equal parts of rock salt and alum dissolved in water, and made about as thick as cream, by stirring in coarse flour. This should be spread on nearly half an inch thick, and scraped off when dry, and repeated if one time is not enough. This same process of dressing applies likewise to otter skins.

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TO TRAP QUAIL.--A quail trap may be any kind of coop, supported by a figure 4. The spindle of the figure must either be so made as to hold grain, or, what is better, some grains of wheat or buckwheat are strung over a strong thread with the aid of a needle, and tied to the spindle. Quails and prairie hens easily enter a trap when the ground is covered with snow. At other times it is rather difficult to catch them.

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TO TRAP WILD TURKEY.--A wild turkey trap is made by first digging a ditch; then over one end is built a rude structure of logs, covered at the top.

The structure should not be tight, but, of course, sufficiently close not to let the birds through. Indian corn is scattered about and in the ditch, and inside of the pen. The turkeys follow up corn in the ditch, and emerge from it on the inside. Once there, the silly birds never think of descending into the ditch, but walk round and round the pen, looking through the chinks of the logs for escape that way. To make all sure, the ditch should end about the centre of the pen, and a bridge of sticks, grass and earth should be built over the ditch, just inside of the pen, and close to the logs; otherwise, in going around the bird might step inside the ditch, and once there, it would follow the light and thereby reach the outside of the pen.

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TO CATCH MUSKRATS WITHOUT TRAPS.--It is a mystery to many how muskrats, beavers, and other animals, are able to remain so long under water, apparently without breathing, especially in winter. The way they manage is, they take in a good breath at starting, and then remain under water as long as possible. Then they rise up to the ice and breathe out the air in their lungs, which remains in a bubble against the lower part of the ice.

The water near the ice is highly charged with oxygen, which it readily imparts to the air breathed out. After a time, this air is taken back in the lungs, and the animal again goes under the water, repeating this process from time to time. In this way they can travel almost any distance, and live almost any length of time under the ice. The hunter takes advantage of this habit of the muskrat in the following manner. When the marshes and ponds where the muskrat abounds are first frozen over, and the ice is thin and clear, on striking into their houses with his hatchet, for the purpose of setting his trap, he frequently sees a whole family plunge into the water and swim away under the ice. Following one for some distance, he sees him come up to recover his breath, in the manner above described. After the animal has breathed against the ice, and before he has time to take his bubble in again, the hunter strikes with his hatchet directly over him, and drives him away from his breath. In this case he drowns in swimming a few rods, and the hunter, cutting a hole in the ice, takes him out.

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BLEACHING WOOL ON TANNED PELTS.--Put an old pot or other iron vessel in the bottom of a hogshead, and in the vessel a roll of brimstone. Fasten near the top a stick or two to place the skin on. The wool must be wet when hung on the sticks. Heat an old iron red hot, or take live coals to start the brimstone. When it is burning briskly, cover the hogshead tight to keep the smoke in. If not white enough, repeat the process.

The Esquimaux mode of tanning is very simple, and the material employed the cheapest and cost accessible of any used in the art, viz: the urine of man and beast. The skins are prepared in the fur, and softened and tanned in urine, which is usually kept in tubs in the porches of their huts, for use in dressing deer, seal and other skins. They show great skill in the preparation of whale, seal and deer skins, and these, on the whole, are equal to the best oil skins made in England. It imparts to them firmness and durability, and makes them waterproof. The boots worn by the Esquimaux are generally made from seal or walrus hides, and resist the encroachments of water.

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HAWK AND OWL TRAPS.--To catch hawks or owls, take a pole 20 feet long, to be set a short distance from the house or barn or on the poultry house. Split the top so as to admit the base of a common steel trap, which should be made fast. When both trap and pole are set you may be sure of game of some kind. These birds naturally light on high objects, such as dead branches of trees or tops of stacks, and one should use judgment about the place where he puts the traps. An open field near the chicken yard is probably the best.

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DOMESTIC MANUFACTURE OF FURS.--The skins of raccoons, minks, muskrats, rabbits, foxes, deer, cats, dogs, woodchucks and skunks are all valuable. Handsome robes may be made from the skins of the last two animals, and the writer has seen fur coats made from the skins of woodchucks, well tanned, dyed and trimmed, which were elegant as well as comfortable, and no one but a connoisseur would be able to guess their origin. Of the finer and nicer furs, beautiful collars, muffs, cuffs, caps, gloves and trimmings may be made with a little ingenuity and perseverance; and who would not feel a greater satisfaction in wearing a nice article, from the fact that it was something of their own manufacture--a product of their own taste and genius?

Very handsome floor-mats are made by tanning sheep pelts and dyeing them some bright color, which is done with very little trouble; the art of dyeing is now so familiar to almost every household. Furs may be dyed as easily as woolen goods, notwithstanding the impression that it is an art known only to the trade. Any dye that will color woolens will also dye furs, only care must be taken not to have the dye too hot, or the texture of the skin will be injured.

The mode of tanning usually followed by city furriers is to rub the skins well with rancid butter, then tread them thoroughly in a tub or vat, after which a large quantity of sawdust is mixed with them, and the process of treading continued until all the grease is absorbed, when they are finished off by beating, working and rubbing with chalk and potter’s clay, whipping and brushing. An old trapper practiced this method with small skins, first washing with a suds of soap and sal-soda to free them from grease, then rinsing in clear water to cleanse them from the suds, then rubbing as dry as possible, after which they were put in a mixture of two ounces of salt to a quart of water, added to three quarts of milk or bran-water containing one ounce of best sulphuric acid, and stirred briskly for forty or fifty minutes; from this they are taken dripping into a strong solution of sal-soda and stirred till they will no longer foam; they are then hung to dry, when they are very soft and pliable.

A very good and simple process in use among farmers is to sprinkle the flesh side, after scraping it well, with equal parts of pulverized alum and salt, or washing it well with a strong solution of the same, then folding the flesh side together and rolling it compactly, in which state it should remain for eight or ten days; then it is opened, sprinkled with bran or sawdust to absorb the moisture, and rolled up again, and after remaining twenty-four hours, the process is completed by a thorough rubbing and manipulation, on which the pliability depends. Skins, when taken off, should be freed from grease or flesh by thorough scraping, when they may be dried, and left to await the leisure of the owner. Previous to tanning they must be well soaked and wrung dry.

It is no extravagance to assert that every farmer’s family may furnish their own fur collars, gloves, robes, and other articles of dress and ornament, with trifling expense, from the resources within their own reach; but from want of more knowledge on the subject valuable skins are wasted or disposed of for a mere fraction of their real value, and articles of apparel that should be made from them are bought at extravagant prices of fur dealers.

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INDIAN MODE OF TANNING BUFFALO SKINS.--The hard and incessant labor that is necessary to properly “Indian tan” a robe is not easily to realize unless one may see the work go on day by day from the first step, which is to spread out the pelt or undressed hide upon the ground, where it is pinned fast by means of wooden pins driven through little cuts in the edge of the robe into the earth. The flesh side of the robe, being uppermost, is then worked over by two and sometimes three squaws. The tools used are very rude, some being simply provided with sharp stones or buffalo bones. Others, more wealthy, have a something that much resembles a drawing-knife or shave of the cooper. The work in hand is to free the hide from every particle of flesh, and to reduce the thickness of the robe nearly one half, and sometimes even more.

This fleshing, as it is termed, having been thoroughly accomplished, the hide is thoroughly moistened with water in which the buffalo brains have been steeped. For ten days the hide is kept damp with this brain water. Once each day the hide is taken up and every portion of it rubbed and re-rubbed by the squaws, who do not have recourse to anything like a rubbing-board, but use their hands until it would seem as if the skin would soon be worn off. There seems to be no definite rule as to the length of time which the robe shall occupy in curing. The squaw labors until the hide becomes a robe, which may require the work of one week or two, sometimes even more; but I think that ten days may be considered as the average time which it takes to properly cure a robe.

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TO DRESS DEER SKINS.--Put the skin into the liquid while warm, viz: eight quarts rain water to one pint soft soap. Warm it. Then punch the hide, or work it with a soft stick, and let it lay one day. It is then to be taken out and wrung--rolled between two logs--or even a wringing machine will be better. Then stretch it until it is dry, in the sun is best, or by a hot fire. Then oil it thoroughly with any oil convenient.

It should then be treated to the same bath of suds (heated quite warm), and lay another day. Then pull it out and dry as before. Any oil will do, but good fresh butter is better than anything else. When the skin is dry rub it with ochre, which will give it a splendid yellow color.

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TANNING AND BUFFING FOR DEER SKIN GLOVES.--For each skin take a bucket of water and put into it 1 quart of lime; let the skin or skins lay in from 3 to 4 days; then rinse in clean water, hair and grain; then soak them in cold water to get out the glue; now scour or pound in good soap suds for half an hour; after which take white vitriol, alum and salt, one tablespoon of each to a skin; this will be dissolved in sufficient water to cover the skin and remain in it for 24 hours; wring out as dry as convenient, and spread on with a brush 1/2 pint of currier’s oil, and hang in the sun about two days; after which you will scour out the oil with soap suds, and hang out again until perfectly dry; then pull and work them until they are soft; and if a reasonable time does not make them soft, scour out in suds again as before, until complete.

The oil may be saved by pouring or taking it from the top of the suds, if left standing a short time. The buff color is given by spreading yellow ochre evenly over the surface of the skin, when finished, rubbing it in well with a brush.

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DYEING FOR BUCKSKIN, (Buff.)--5 parts of whiting to 2 parts of ochre (yellow), and mix them with water to a paste; make into cakes and dry. When a dressed skin is dry, rub one of the balls over the surface; rub the powder in. Take a piece of sand-paper and raise a nap on the leather by going over it. (Black.)--Take clear logwood; after it is dry use copperas water to blacken it. Be careful and not use too much. (Dark Brown.)--5 pounds of oak bark; 4 pounds of fustic; 14 ounces of logwood. Use alum water (strong) to make it strike in. (Drab.)--Mix blue clay with soft soap; add blue vitriol to shade the color. It can be made any shade you wish.

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DYEING FOR MOROCCO AND SHEEP LEATHER.--The following colors may be imparted to leather, according to the various uses for which it is intended. (Blue.)--Blue is given by steeping the subject a day in urine and indigo, then boiling it with alum; or it may be given by tempering the indigo with red wine, and washing the skins therewith.

(Another.)--Boil elderberries or dwarf elder, then smear and wash the skins therewith and wring them out; then boil the elderberries as before in a solution of alum water, and wet the skins in the same manner once or twice; dry them, and they will be very blue. (Red.)--Red is given by washing the skin and laying them two hours in galls, then wringing them out, dipping them in a liquor made with ligustrum, alum and verdigris; in water, and lastly in a dye made of Brazil wood boiled with lye. (Purple.)--Purple is given by wetting the skins with a solution of roche alum in warm water, and when dry, again rubbing them with the hand with a decoction of logwood in cold water. (Green.)--Green is given by smearing the skin with sap green and alum water, boiled. (Dark Green.)--Dark green is given with steel filings and sal ammoniac, steeped in urine till soft, then smeared over the skin, which is to be dried in the shade. (Yellow.)--Yellow is given by smearing the skin over with aloes and linseed oil, dissolved and strained, or by infusing it in weld. (Light Orange.)--Orange color is given by smearing it with fustic berries boiled in alum water, or, for a deep orange, with turmeric. (Sky color.)--Sky color is given with indigo steeped in boiling water, and the next morning warmed and smeared over the skin.

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OPERATION OF TANNING.--The first operation is to soak the hide, as no hide can be properly tanned unless it has been soaked and broken on a fleshing beam. If the hide has not been salted add a little salt and soak it in soft water. In order to be thoroughly soaked, green hides should remain in this liquor from 9 to 12 days; of coarse the lime varies with the thickness of the hide. The following liquor is used to remove hair or wool, viz: 10 gallons cold water (soft), 8 quarts slacked lime, and same quantity of wood ashes. Soak until the hair or wool will pull off easily.

As it frequently happens it is desirable to cure the hide and keep the hair clean, the following paste should be made, viz: equal parts of lime and hard-wood ashes, (lime should be slacked,) and made into a paste with soft water. This should be spread on the flesh side of the hide and the skin rolled up, flesh side in, and placed in a tub, just covering it with water. It should remain 10 days, or until the hair will pull out easily, then scrape off with a knife.

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TO DEODERIZE SKUNK SKINS.--To deoderize skunk skins or articles for clothing scented, hold them over a fire of red cedar boughs, and sprinkle with chloride of lime; or wrap them in green hemlock boughs when they are to be had, and in 24 hours they will be cleansed.

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HOW TO SHOOT SNIPE.--To the beginner no bird is more puzzling, and, therefore, more difficult to shoot. Its flight is most uncertain, most variable, and most irregular--rising at one time as evenly as a lark, and flying close to the ground with scarcely the slightest deviation from a straight line; at another, springing from the ground as if fired from a gun, and then flying in a zig-zag course to the right or left, and, indeed, in every direction; and sometimes, again, rising to a great height, and then going straight away with the rapidity of lightning. And yet, with all these apparent difficulties, when the knack is once acquired, it becomes comparatively easy--indeed, is reduced almost to a certainty. The great art in this kind of shooting is coolness, and to avoid too much hurry. And, in this, as in every other kind of shooting, the first sight is the best; the moment you are “well on” your bird, the trigger should be pulled. In cross shots, fire well before your bird. Contrary to the usual practice, you should always walk down wind; the reason for this is that snipe always rise against it. Sometimes snipe are very wild, and at others will lie until they are almost trodden upon. If there be much wind, your best chance is to “down with them” as soon as they rise from the ground, or you have little hope of getting a bag.

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PRESEVERATIVES FOR SKINS.--The best material for the preseveration of skins of animals consists in powdered arsenious acid, or the common arsenic of the shops. This may be used in two ways: either applied in dry powder on the moist skin, or, still better, mixed with alcohol or water to the consistency of molasses, and put on with a brush. Some camphor may be added to the alcoholic solution, and a little strychnine will undoubtedly increase its efficacy. There are no satisfactory substitutes for arsenic, but, in its entire absence, corrosive sublimate, camphor, alum, etc., may be employed.

Many persons prefer the arsenical soap to the pure arsenic. This is composed of the following ingredients, arsenic, 1 ounce; white soap, 1 ounce; carbonate of potash, 1 dram; water, 6 drams; camphor, 2 drams. Cut the soap into thin slices, and melt over a slow fire with the water, stirring it continually; when dissolved, remove from the fire, and add the potash and arsenic by degrees; dissolve the camphor in a little alcohol, and when the mixture is nearly cold, stir it in.