An Early Guide to Trapping

   Whether your industry be pelts for fashion,The trials of sport, riddance of pests, or finding food,The first rule is your unobtrusiveness;The second, except for pestilence,Is that you cause small injury,As any hurt will render animalsLess valuable.

           Tend your traps.A fouled device is wasted ingenuityAnd escape the spent engine of diligence.And know that those once caught by limbs may gnawThemselves free, walking after on three legsAnd ever wary of your instrument.Any slight in practice lessens chanceOf prize. Prompt attendance answers this.

   The idea of one trap is no ideaAs best results will always come in numbers,Allowing you to find in series whatNo single bait can ever fetch.Remember range is hunger and supply,So set your lines accordingly, crossingAll customary paths. Movement is your friend.Since nocturnals make your fortune while you sleep,Let sleep be model and reminderThat the landscape also rests, and will be crossed,And its encounters made your benefit.

   As to your traps, clean them of incident.Even you in your particular may foul.And understand that quiet suits you best,As the set jaws, nets, doors, boxes, and pits Of your engines readily display.Waiting is the final instrument;Learn that and make it your advantage.

   Look for wet season when populations grow,And meeting the face of imposed idlenessCount the future as long gain.Memorize the graduals that water takesAs thirst can be a steady allyAnd underbrush the site of much traffic.

   Except when facing certain deprivation,See that you pull your traps by spring;The captured kit or fawn is small rewardCompared to later enterprise.Be systematic in your work,And avoid distraction over painful signs(the enlarged stare, extended legs, set mouth)As suffering will touch all animals,However long or cannily one skirts that fire.

   As you would teach your children caution,What to expect, where not to step,How sorrow follows error,How grief's a backward pain without relief,Perfect yourself in every watchfulness.Food comes to the focused eye, and hunger focuses,While living in hours only means hours.

   And to those traps, filled and waiting you,Be prompt to clear, re-bait, and set.And never let the signatures of grief—Whether met firsthand or written by escape—Dissuade you from refinement of purpose,As you will increase by every good form of patience.