CHAPTER II.

HUNTING WITHOUT A GUN.

How to Capture and Trap Small Live Animals.

A boy who can spend part of his time out of town, and is the fortunate owner of a mongrel cur, forms a combination for enjoyment and fun hard to be beaten by anything in nature. A good yellow dog, unencumbered by any aristocratic ancestors, is an ideal companion in the wood, and field: it can scent a woodchuck leagues away, it knows just how to head a chipmonk off from its retreat, and there is not a trick known to the professional poacher which is not familiar to the real country plebeian cur.

Chipmonks and Woodchucks!

There is a potent charm in those words, which can iron the wrinkles out of an old brow, and soften the hard lines in the face of a careworn professional or business man.

Not long ago I attended a dinner given by the

Camp-Fire Club,

and there I found ranged around the table an array of veteran hunters. There were men there who had hunted the royal Bengal tiger in the jungles of India, men who had fought with rogue elephants, men who had followed the lions to their dens in Africa, men who had tracked the white bear to its lair in the far frozen North. There were gentlemen who hunted for pleasure, cowboys and scouts--Coquina Shields, “Wolf” Thompson, “Curio” Brown, “Yellowstone” Kelly, Andrew J. Stone, and many others equally well-known in the forests or on the plains were seated at the big round table.[3]

That they were real simon-pure sportsmen could be seen at a glance, and yet, when the after-dinner speeches were made, the sentiments which received the most enthusiastic applause were those which DENOUNCED THE KILLING OF MAN OR BEAST. It could readily be seen that these men only used the gun when it was necessary to procure food or in self-defence. They all indorsed the use of the camera for the hunt in place of the murderous gun; as one of them remarked, “With a kodak every good shot is registered with the click of the shutter, and an album of good shots is a thing of which any man may be proud.”

With a little private zoo of captured live game you may have a living album, which attests the skill of the collector and his knowledge of woodcraft as accurately as any album of photographs.

The next chapter tells how to build a back-yard zoo, and now we must learn how to stock one. If the reader will examine the plans in the chapter mentioned, he will see that there is one compartment marked

“Receiving-Cage.”

This is the place where our new captures find temporary shelter until their regular quarters are prepared for them.

The most accessible game for boys belongs to the

Rodents or Gnawers.

These animals can be readily distinguished by their long, chisel-like front teeth. A familiar example of this family may be found in every town and city, and is known as the common rat, the Norway rat, or the brown rat.

Formerly the common rat of the United States was black, but his brown relative has about exterminated the more graceful black one. The only black rat I ever saw was a dead one, which I found one summer in an unoccupied house in the mountains of Pennsylvania. But there are plenty of beautiful little gnawers around us everywhere. There are the soft, furry, big-eyed flying-squirrels, which leave their warm nests at dusk and sail through the air from tree to tree, or romp among the branches until daylight. Just at dawn they return to their beds, to sleep away the day in their dark holes, secure from the garish sunlight.

Of course any boy with money can purchase flying-squirrels, but no boy with any pride would stoop to buy his live game, unless he is so unfortunate as to be unable to leave the densely populated city. I well remember the two boys[4] who gave me my first lessons in hunting flying-squirrels. I followed them across meadows, over hills, through the woods, down into the dank and dark swamps, until we found some old hollow cedars on the edge of the water. Here one of the lads armed himself with a small wand, and the other busied himself gathering old dry leaves and bits of moist bark to make a smudge. The boy armed with the wand probed the hollow trees until he discovered a hole from which the wand would bring forth some bits of the fine shredded inner bark of the cedar. We all know that neither the inner bark nor any other kind of bark grows in the hollow of trees, and when it is discovered there you can wager that it was put there by some animal.

This stringy, soft stuff is famous material for a nest, and both the white-footed mice and the flying-squirrels are fully aware of its good properties.

When some of this nesting is found in a tree, it is safe to say that there is a nest inside.

A Smudge

is now lighted and the hollow tree is filled with smoke. As soon as this is thoroughly done, you may safely thrust your arm into the hollow and bring out the stupefied inmates.

I never knew the smoke to cause the squirrels any serious harm. The little captives soon revive, when brought out into the open air.

Flying-Squirrels,

when tame, make the most gentle pets, but when wild, and rudely seized by hand, they have a vicious way of using their chisel-like teeth which induces more caution the next time. A smoke-stupefied squirrel is much more pleasant to handle than a wild one, frantic with fright.

If, however, you protect your hand with an ordinary bicycle or golf cap, you can seize almost any small animal with impunity. I caught nine flying-squirrels in one night, with no protection for my hand but an old cloth cap.

Do not try to throw the cap over the animal, or it will escape from beneath, but use the cap as a protection to your hand, then grasp the creature by a quick movement, closing your fingers tightly over its body, being careful not to squeeze hard enough to injure the terrified little squirrel. The advantage of this mode of capture is that, having the game in your hand, you can easily thrust it into the cloth bag you carry for that purpose.

The Cloth Bag

is a most convenient thing; it is easy to carry, allows plenty of air, and the little creatures never think of gnawing out while you carry them.

I have carried

Short-Tailed Meadow-Rats

and white-footed mice for miles, tied up in my handkerchief, and no attempt was made by my prisoners to use their teeth to assist them in escaping.

The gentle, graceful little jumping-mice, white-footed mice, short-tailed meadow-rats, and flying squirrels are all to be found inside the city limits of Greater New York, and some of their relatives are to be found in almost any rural place in this country. These interesting little creatures can be captured with ordinary box-traps, figure fours, or the square or round wire mouse-traps. The white-footed mice or deer-mice may be found in the abandoned nests of other rodents, in hollow logs, in old corn-stacks, in holes in the fence-rails, and under clods of old ploughed fields, or beneath brush-heaps in the fence corners.

In the late autumn, before the first snow comes, they have a very pretty way of

Utilizing Last Summer’s Birds’-Nests

by filling them with the soft down from the cat-tails of a neighboring marsh, or with moss and wood fibres, thistledown, or the silky feathers from the seed of the milk-weed. Like flying-squirrels, the little deer-mice bury themselves in the soft nests, and sleep away the day, emerging at night for food and exercise.

If the branch upon which the nest is located is but touched, the brown-backed, nimble-footed little squatter will poke his head from the middle of the nest, look inquiringly around, and if no danger appears the head is withdrawn, and the mouse resumes its slumbers; but if it is deemed that there is cause for serious alarm, it will spring from the nest, and with the agility of a squirrel run lightly up a branch, and from this point of vantage turn its bright eyes on the intruder with a sort of “please don’t” expression. If further frightened it will hastily leap to the ground and disappear in the brush and dry leaves.

Sometimes I have found birds’-nests with a neatly laid thatch roof over the bowl, and a round doorway gnawed through the side of the nest for a means of access to the interior, where, snugly curled up in a warm bed of down, the little white-footed mouse was sleeping.

White-Footed Mice as Pets.

Once, while skating on a pond, I discovered a pair of deer-mice keeping house in the walls of the mound of mud and roots reared by musk-rats for their winter quarters.

You may capture these little fellows by hand, if you use due caution in approaching their habitation, and shield your hand with an ordinary pocket-handkerchief.

They will make beautiful pets, and you will find them much more interesting than the common white mice.

Give them a tall narrow cage, with plenty of head room, wire a branch containing a last summer’s bird’s-nest to the side of their cage for sleeping quarters, and feed the mice with bread, seed, and grain.

Short-tailed Meadow-Rats

frequent the salt meadows, where their grass-roofed paths may be found intersecting each other everywhere. After the blunt-headed little creatures have been discovered, by uncovering their runways, you may capture them with your hand, shielded by a cloth cap.

Beware of their teeth, for they are savage biters and plucky fighters.

Meadow-rats are not climbers. Put them in a flat cage with a good wide expanse of bottom covered with sod of growing grass, the roots of which they will eagerly devour. Feed them garden vegetables, when grass roots are not available.

If you are an expert it is sometimes possible to catch chipmonks by hand. I never succeeded but once in capturing one in this manner. They will enter almost any ordinary sort of a trap, and can be best captured in that way. Set the trap near the hole known to be occupied by one of these scolding little rodents, and give your captives a roomy cage, with a dark corner for a nest. They make gentle and amusing pets. Feed them on acorns and nuts. Crack the hardest nuts for them.

Jumping-mice,

when discovered, are off like a flash, and are too swift of foot to be captured by hand--at least this has been my experience. They may sometimes be found under clods of an old ploughed field, in fence corners, or under loose brush and stones. Like the white-footed mice and flying-squirrels, they are nocturnal in their habits, and there may be thousands living all around you, and you will never suspect their presence until your cat brings one in from the field, or you find their half-devoured remains in the screech-owl’s nest in the old apple-tree.

Jumping-mice have been known to make their nests in a beehive, and I know of one short-tailed meadow-rat which chose the same sort of sweet home.

In winter the jumping-mouse becomes torpid and apparently dead, and you may lay him away in a box of cotton, where it will remain until the bursting bud and freshening grass announce the approach of spring. Then your little pet will wake up, and be as full of life as if it had only taken a noon nap.

Although quite vicious, and dangerous to handle in their wild state,

Woodchucks

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.

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.

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

A Box-Trap, or Figure Four,

may be successfully used to capture both young and old.

However fierce an old wild “ground-hog” may be, one that is taken young and reared in captivity is remarkably gentle. It is fond of a noonday nap, but when the sun sinks in the west, and the long shadows creep across the fields, it will rouse from its slumber, sit up, wash its face like a mouse or a squirrel, and be ready for a frolic.

When cold weather approaches, the woodchuck, ground-hog, marmot, or _siffleur_, as it is variously called, will prepare for a long winter sleep by rolling itself into a ball. In this condition you may pack it away like the jumping-mouse, and when friends call you can take the ground-hog out and even roll it around the floor without seeing any signs of life displayed by the hairy ball. But when spring returns, your Rip Van Winkle pet will awaken, and after sitting up on its haunches, and washing its face with its front paws, will be ready for a breakfast of clover or other food.

Rare old Captain John Smith, in his quaint “History of New England and the Summer Isles,” published in London in 1624, gives, probably, the first written account of the musk-rat. He says that “the mussascus is a beast of the form and nature of our (English) water-rat;” and he adds, “some of them smell exceedingly strong of musk.” These animals may be caught in almost any sort of a trap baited with sweet apples or parsnips.

Musk-Rats

have very strong teeth, and can use them on wood effectively, so it is wise to protect all corners and cracks in your wooden traps with pieces of tin or sheet-iron. They have good noses, and can smell an apple a long distance off. Place your traps in the shallow water at the edge of the mill-pond or stream inhabited by these rats, and they will doubtless find it without difficulty.

Young musk-rats are very gentle and playful, and may be handled without fear; they do not grow fierce with age if reared in captivity and accustomed to gentle treatment.

When kept in confinement give them a roomy cage, with a tank of water to swim in. Build the tank after the manner of the one described in the “Back-yard Fish-Pond.”

There is one other little animal, familiar to most boys, and which they are too apt to value only for its skin. In truth, this creature generally has a very bad name, and, personally, I owe it a grudge for stealing all my live bait, on more than one occasion.

Nevertheless, when domesticated and supplied with plenty of food, like many a poor two-legged wretch, it will turn honest, and give up its bad habit of robbing hen-roosts. This long-bodied little animal is the mink, which, like those animals already described, is not difficult to capture in almost any sort of a trap.

When caught young it becomes very gentle, and even affectionate. It is passionately fond of frogs, and these batrachians make a good bait for mink-traps. Minks will eat fish and when domesticated will not hurt your chickens, but will wage a relentless war upon rats and mice.

You need not confine your mink, for it will make chums of your dog and cat, and is fond of a cosey spot in the chimney corner.

While I was sketching on the coast of Maine I spent a whole day at my easel, between two great rocks. I soon discovered that I was watched by some creatures, and it was not long before my neighbors made up their minds that the two-legged thing was a harmless sort of animal, and, before I finished my sketch, they amused themselves by jumping back and forth over my feet. At first I was more afraid of them than they were of me, but soon discovered that they meant no harm: so I painted away, with a pair of wild mink playing about my feet like tame kittens.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] G. O. Shields, President of the League of American Sportsmen, editor of _Recreation_.

Ernest Seton-Thompson, naturalist to the Government of Manitoba, author of “Wild Animals I Have Known.”

Capt. Luther S. Kelly, veteran of the War of ’61 and Spanish War, Indian fighter, one of General Custer’s scouts and hunters.

William Harvey Brown, African traveller, hunter and collector for the United States Museum, author of “On the South African Frontier.”

A. J. Stone, field naturalist, arctic explorer, hero of a 3,000-mile sledge journey, discoverer of several American mammals new to science.

[4] Charles Dana Gibson, the artist, and his brother, Langdon Gibson, naturalist and traveller.