One trapper, who may have no assistant, will put down
as many as twelve dozen traps. The mere number absolutely prevents him fulfilling the regulation that every trap shall be visited within the twelve hours. More than this, he is almost certain to forget the whereabouts of all, and will therefore leave a certain number of victims to die of pain and hunger. It is, of course, against the law to set steel traps in the open ; but over wide districts there is not so much as a pretence of observing the law. In one case that I know of seven open traps were found down one short hedgerow. Such traps may catch any bird, any animal— the snipe or blackbird, the weasel or the fox, the kitten or the foxhound. The traffic is not small and local, not a partial abuse, but a widespread and open scandal, the talk of the country people, of villager and landowner and farmer, and everyone who keeps dog or cat. To permit its continuance as practised to-day is to condone cruelty and legalize con- tempt of law. The killed rabbits leave West Country stations in regular consignments that soon amount to tons from a single centre ; and almost all are caught in steel traps, of which a certain proportion have been set in the open, not within the mouth of the burrow.
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