The pit trap can be used where skunk and other animals frequent. Bait the place for some days before the pit is dug. If the pit is to be used without bait, then find the runways of the animal and dig the pit. While some animals may not be shy, if a little fresh dirt is lying around, yet it is best to be very careful and carry all earth taken out of pit a few rods to one side. Pits of this kind should be several feet deep. The success the hunter or trapper has in using this method will depend largely upon his knowledge of the game he is after. Unless the animal or animals are wanted alive, the work to make a pit is too great and the chances of a catch never certain. This way is not practicable under ordinary circumstances, yet where the game is wanted alive and sound, is worth trying. CHAPTER XXI. NUMBER OF TRAPS. In some localities there are not many dens and trappers make use of about all when trapping that section, but in other parts of the country dens are so numerous that to place a trap at each is impossible. In states where groundhogs (woodchucks), are numerous there are often a hundred or more dens along a single bluff or rocky bank. To have enough steel traps to set one at each is something few trappers do, yet two or three deadfalls in connection with a line of steel traps is all that is necessary and the trapper can move on to the next bluff where dens are numerous and set another trap or two. As a rule it is where there are many dens, close together, that deadfalls make the best catches, yet when you find a good den anywhere, set or construct a deadfall. All trappers have noticed when tracking animals in the snow that they visit nearly every den along their route, not always going in but just sticking their head in. When thus investigating, the animal smells the bait and is hungry (as nine times out of ten the animal is hunting something to eat), and if your trap is set properly you are reasonably sure to make a catch. In the North, Canada, Alaska and some of the states on the Canadian border where trapping is made a business, it is no uncommon thing for one man to have as many as one hundred and fifty traps and some have out twice that many, or three hundred. Marten trappers in the trackless forests often blaze out a route fifty or more miles in length, building shelters along the line where nights are spent. The trapper who only spends a few hours each day at trapping and lives in thickly settled districts will find that it is hard for him to locate suitable places perhaps for more than thirty to fifty traps, yet if these will be looked at properly during the season the catch will justify the time and labor in building.