There was, for instance, a very
effective mode of setting a wire with a springe or bow. A stout stick
was thrust into the ground, and then bent over into an arch. When the
wire was thrown it instantly released the springe, which sprang up and
drew it fast round the neck of the hare or rabbit, whose fore feet were
lifted from the earth. Sometimes a growing sapling was bent down for the
bow if it chanced to stand conveniently near a run. The hare no sooner
put her head into the noose than she was suspended and strangled.
I tried the springe several times for rabbits, and found it answer; but
the poacher cannot use it because it is so conspicuous. The stick
itself, rising above the grass, is visible at some distance, and when
thrown it holds the hare or rabbit up for any one to see that passes by.
With a wire set in the present manner the captured animal lies extended,
and often rolls into a furrow and is further hidden.
The springe was probably last employed by the mole-catchers. Their
wooden traps were in the shape of a small tunnel, with a wire in the
middle which, when the mole passed through, set free a bent stick. This
stick pulled the wire and hung the mole. Such mole-catchers' bows or
springes used to be seen in every meadow, but are now superseded by the
iron trap.
Springes with horsehair nooses on the ground were also set for woodcocks
and for wild ducks.
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