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The snare used for the snowshoe rabbit is the simplest form of the trap that can be made. Rabbits of this species arc usually found in abundance in the Northern cedar swamps, hazel and alder thickets and poplar groves. In such places their repeated trips back and forth through the passages between clumps of brush near their homes form little paths, firmly beaten and clearly defined. These little trails, four or five inches in width, are common in places where rabbit.-, are found and it is on such trails that the animals are snared. The Indians use for rabbit snares a very thin linen twine; but the amateur will have far greater success by using snare wire and he will also find it more convenient. The wire is of spring brass, about No. 22 or 24. and in districts where it is used it may be procured from any hardware store. I have no doubt that it is kept by all hardware dealers of the Adirondacks, Maine and Canada. It is usually sold in coils which retail at five cents each. About three feet of wire is used for a snare, it is doubled, a nail or pencil thrust through the loop and the two thickness’ of wire lightly twisted, then the double end is thrust through the little loop and a slip noose is the result.
When a narrow part of the trail, where brush or other obstructions will guide the rabbit into the snare, has been selected, the noose is opened until about four and a half inches in diameter, bent into a round shape which will stay so until the rabbit draws it tightly about his neck. Then a brush an inch thick at the butt is cut half off about six inches above the ground and bent across the trail so that it stands about nine inches above the path and the wire is fastened firmly to this brush so that the noose is held close against the brush and squarely over the trail. If a brush of the right size is not found conveniently near, one may be cut entirely off and placed across the path and the noose secured to it. Then on each side of the noose small dead sticks should be stuck into the ground and one shorter one should be placed beneath the noose so that the rabbit cannot pass under. If there are no branches on the brush above the noose, a small additional brush should be placed above it to prevent the rabbit from jumping over it. If rightly made the only opening large enough to allow the animal's passage is the one which is guarded by the noose, and the rabbit does not hesitate to attempt to jump through this. The result invariably is the tightening of the noose about the animal's neck and a quick end to his life.
I remember well my first acquaintance with this snare. I found a rabbit hanging by the neck from a brush where he had been caught late in the winter and the melting spring snow had left him hanging with his feet several inches above the ground. Not being acquainted with this form of snare. I could not understand how he had been caught. My knowledge of rabbit snares was limited to the spring-pole snare used for cottontails farther South; but an examination of this snare did not reveal anything resembling in the least a spring-pole, neither could I see any trigger sticks or other apparatus such as used with the snares I knew.
In winter the rabbit trails are more in evidence than in the fall, and the rabbits cling to them more closely so that snaring is made easier thereby. The snares are set in the same way as when the ground is bare; but the sticks are of course stuck in the snow. In all cases dead wood should be used, or if green wood must be employed it should be a kind of which the rabbits do not eat the bark. The woods preferred as food by snowshoe rabbits are birch, poplar and tamarack.
The Indian rabbit snarers use twine for snares and generally use a lifting pole to raise the rabbit above the ground. The pole is held down by tying the snare to a cross stick or bow formed by thrusting the ends of a stick into the ground, a simple jamb hitch being used for tying. The captured rabbit unties the pole by the first lunge on the snare, and is lifted off the ground by the rising pole. When a white man tries to snare snowshoe rabbits with twine snares the usual result is to find the snare string neatly bitten off by the rabbit, for these animals have a mania for gnawing anything which a white man touches with his bare hands. Rut the Indians are very successful in using twine snares and I have known a snarer to get 50 or 60 rabbits in a day in snares. The most successful rabbit snarer I ever knew, however, was an old German settler who used wire snares, and it seemed that he seldom set a snare that he did not have his rabbit on the first trip.
Cottontail rabbits, that is the kind found throughout the greater part of the United States, are easily caught in baited spring-pole snares. I might give a detailed description of the trap, but the drawing shows so plainly how it is made that I think a description superfluous, and I think the readers will be more interested in the snares used for catching fur-bearing animals. Stout seine twine should be used for the snare and the noose is spread in a square form measuring about eight or nine inches in diameter. At the rear it should he supported by very small crotched twigs and the approach should be blocked on all sides except the front by stones or stakes. Sweet apples are the most effective bait; but corn, cabbage and similar baits may be used.
Fur, News. Fur News, January 1916.
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