[Gutenberg 50600] • How to Make and Set Traps / Including Hints on How to Trap Moles, Weasels, Otter, Rats, Squirrels and Birds; Also How to Cure Skins

HOW TO MAKE AND SET TRAPS.

I.

THE MOLE.

Dirt has been defined as “matter in the wrong place.” It is very useful, and, indeed, indispensable, as earth in a garden, but decidedly unbecoming and dirty when on your face or clothes. In a similar way, most of the creatures termed “vermin” are in themselves very graceful and beautiful specimens of the Creator’s handiwork, but when they encroach on man’s paths of progress and improvement they become “vermin,” and though all life should be looked upon as a fearful and wonderful thing, not to be lightly taken from its possessor, they are then justifiably slain.

The little gentleman in black velvet—the mole—is a lovely-coated little fellow, possessing many virtues, such as courage, industry, and parental affection, but when he once gets into your father’s garden, which has probably cost money and exceeding care to render it neat and productive, our little friend is transformed into one of the most troublesome of “vermin,” and must be relentlessly sacrificed by the trapper. If this is not done, Master Mole will himself sacrifice the crops in his efforts to get at the worms, which, as the late Charles Darwin so conclusively showed, are one of the great regenerating forces of the land’s fertility.

Look at rats again. See how lithe and agile they are, how fond of their young, and provident in storing food for future consumption; yet they are without a redeeming excellency if, like dirt, they are in the wrong place—as they are, by the way, pretty certain to be.