Huntsville gazette., 1888-06-23
THE GROUND-HOG.
An Animal That Is a Good Deal
Smarter Than He Looks.
How One Amused Himself With n Trap
Another Had Lots of Fun With
Flock of Sagacious
Crows.

'.Did you ever trap for ground
hog?" asked State Printer E. F. Mey-
ers "If not, don't you ever do it. In
the first place, if you catch your
grounding you won't know what to
to do with it, for the skin is no good
and the meat will spoil soap grease.
In the second place, you would never
catch one, for although the ground-hog
looks like chuckle-head he's smarter
than mustard plaster. You will only
risk your trap if you try to catch a
grounding. for the chances are that
the sly old hibernator will come out of
his hole. spring the trap with q stick
or by tossing a stone on the plate and
then lug it off a mile or so and bury it.
A friend of mine once set trap to
catch grounding, and the ground
hog limited to him two or three times
that he didn't want the trap around
his diggings by carrying it away a half
mile and hanging it on bush. But
my friend thought he knew what was
best for that grounding than the
patiently protesting rodent did him
self, and SO kept on setting the trap
right in front of the entrance to the
woodchuck' dwelling-plac
Zone morning he went to look for
it, and when he got within long gun
shot of the hole he saw the ground-hog
dragging the trap by its chain off
across the field in the direction of my
friends barn. The owner of the barn
thought he would amuse himself by
quietly watching the ground-hog to see
where he intended to hide the trap.
The ground-hog dragged the trap
straight to the barn, which was nearly
half mile away, and my friend crept
along within easy distance Of it. The
woodchuck took the trap around the
corner of the barn. My friend had 4
young bird-dog chained in a kennel
behind the barn. He crept on after
the grounding, and peekIng around
the corner, saw the cute little beast
steal up to one side of the kennel and
slyly shove the trap in front of the en-
trance. Then it gave the kennel kick
with both hind feet. Out bounced the
dog. slapped both fore feet in the trap,
and snap she went. The dog was
caught, and while his master was re-
leasing the yelping pup the ground
hog strobe away, and my friend says it
looked exactly as if it were shaking
all over with ghoulish glee. The trap
per took that hint right home with him
and made up his mind that unless he
quit trapping for that grounding it
would be trapping for him next, and
80 he quit.
May be you never went out after
crows with gun? Don't 60 and waste
your time doing that either. Crows
have q nice eye for q gun and big
nose for powder. You can make q
wooden gun so near like real gun
that it would fool the best gunmaker
in the country, butit won t fool crow.
You can shoulder that wooden gun and
start out thinking you will scare all the
crows out of the neighborhood on sight,
but they are on to you at once. They
will sit right still on the fence,
in the cornfeld, or in the tall, dead
tree, and just lie back and howl
with Joy at the way you are being
fooled yourself, and won't go away
until you hit them with stone. The
crows will getu and sail away for the
next county before you come within half
mile of them. Why. if you should
shake hands with charcoal man to-
day, and year from to-day sit down
on barrel of saltpeter, you couldn't
get within rifle range of crow after
that. They detect the smell of that
combination of charcoal and saltpeter
at once, and think you've got gun
powder about you. They know what
powder can do, and off they go.
Speaking of crows and ground-hogs
puts me in mind of funny thing saw
once while l was driving to Bedford
Springs. 1t was in July, and the road
was hot and dusty. | was driving
along, thinking what colossal fame and
fortune awaited the man who should
invent beer keg that you could carry
under your wagon seat, and that would
keep beer ice-cold and fresh on tap
while the mercury was dallying with
the top of the thermometer, when |
heard lot of crows making big fuss
over in q field of wheat stubble off to
one side of the road. There were about
City in the flock, and they were