[Illustration: The Tin Can-Trap.--Make a door of a square or rectangular piece of tin. With a nail make two holes in the top of the door for the wire hinges (Fig. 14). With a heavy knife cut a doorway a trifle smaller than the door. Cut three slashes as shown in Fig. 15. Bend the two sides in as shown in Fig. 16, then hang the door with the wire hinges. Fig. 17 shows the door from the inside of the tin box, and Fig. 18 shows the same from the outside. The door, as may be readily seen, can be pushed up from the outside to admit the game, but when the prisoners attempt to get out they cannot push the door open, for the trap opens but one way. Do not leave space enough below the side-pieces for the animal to thrust his nose or paws under, or it may lift the door in this way and escape. If, as in the diagrams, it is necessary to cut a little above the bottom of the box, put a flat stone, or some similar object, inside for the side-pieces and the door to rest upon. Fig. 19 shows the manner of cutting the tin. Another door can be made by cutting a star in the tin, and then bending the pointed pieces in far enough to allow the game to squeeze through. The points will not allow anything to crawl out, however, and it must remain there until released (Fig. 20). These diagrams are given so that the young hunters may make their own traps, in case the ordinary mice and rat-traps to be found in shops are inaccessible.] June is the time to capture the young ones, as they play about their home hole. A Box-Trap, or Figure Four, may be successfully used to capture both young and old. However fierce an old wild “ground-hog” may be, one that is taken young and reared in captivity is remarkably gentle. It is fond of a noonday nap, but when the sun sinks in the west, and the long shadows creep across the fields, it will rouse from its slumber, sit up, wash its face like a mouse or a squirrel, and be ready for a frolic. [Illustration: FIG. 19.--How the Tin is Cut.] When cold weather approaches, the woodchuck, ground-hog, marmot, or _siffleur_, as it is variously called, will prepare for a long winter sleep by rolling itself into a ball. In this condition you may pack it away like the jumping-mouse, and when friends call you can take the ground-hog out and even roll it around the floor without seeing any signs of life displayed by the hairy ball. But when spring returns, your Rip Van Winkle pet will awaken, and after sitting up on its haunches, and washing its face with its front paws, will be ready for a breakfast of clover or other food. Rare old Captain John Smith, in his quaint “History of New England and the Summer Isles,” published in London in 1624, gives, probably, the first written account of the musk-rat. He says that “the mussascus is a beast of the form and nature of our (English) water-rat;” and he adds, “some of them smell exceedingly strong of musk.” These animals may be caught in almost any sort of a trap baited with sweet apples or parsnips.