The
slighter the strain on the springe, the more delicately can its mechanism
be set.
Nooses.--Catgut (which see) makes better nooses than string, because it
is stiff enough to keep in shape when set: brass wife that has been
heated red-hot, is excellent; for it has no tendency whatever to twist,
and yet is perfectly pliable. Fish-hooks are sometimes attached to
springes; sometimes a tree is bent down and a strong cord is used for the
noose, by which large animals are strangled up in the air, as leopards
are in Abyssinia. A noose may be set in any place where there is a run;
it can be kept spread out, by thin rushes or twigs set crosswise in it.
If the animal it is set for can gnaw, a heavy stone should be loosely
propped up, which the animal in its struggles may set free, and by the
weight of which it may be hung up and strangled. It is a very convenient
plan for a traveller who has not time to look for runs, to make little
hedges across a creek, or at right angles to a clump of trees, and to set
his snares in gaps left in these artificial hedges. On the same
principle, artificial islands of piles and faggots Are commonly made in
lakes that are destitute of any real ones, in order that they may become
a resort of wild-fowl.
Javelins.--Heavy poisoned javelins, hung over elephant and hippopotamus
paths, and dropped on a catch being touched, after the manner of a
springe, are used generally in Africa.
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