Snare

“ Παγις signifies a net, trap, gin, snare, spring, or pit dug in the ground filled with sharp stakes, and slightly covered over; so that when a man, or any animal, steps upon it, he tumbles in, and is taken or destroyed. Such a snare is that into which those who will be rich must necessarily fall. ”

“ These snares are made of the intestines of the deer, twisted into a round shape, and looped. They are placed so that several snares may embrace the opening, and the swans cannot pass through without being caught.
The snare is fastened to a stake, driven into the mud with sufficient firmness to hold the bird when caught and struggling. That the snare may not be blown out of its proper place by the wind, or carried astray by the current, it is attached to the wattles of the hedge by some strands of grass. ”

“ Loops and festoons threatened to lasso and hang us at times, and whilst our eyes were engaged in watching for the dangers threatening us above our feet would be caught in some vegetable snare which the genii of the forest had spread for the intruder man. ”

“ The efforts of the more active animals being thus frustrated, a ground mole, though such a grovelling and awkward beast, succeeded by burrowing under the road in the sky, until it reached and cut asunder the snare which bound the sun. ”

“ The haunts of the male should be first discovered, and the trap-cage should be placed as near the spot where the bird sings as possible. Before you fix the snare turn up the earth a little, which will tempt them to look there for food, and lime-twigs may also be placed in the hedge at the same time, with a few meal-worms stuck at proper places to draw them into the snare. ”

“ There is one passage in Ecclesiastes, where both the fishing-net and the snare are mentioned in connexion with each other: "For man knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them" (ix. 12) .
Allusion is also made to the snare by the prophet Amos in one of the passages where his rough, homely diction rises by successive steps into sublimity: "Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? ”

“ He knew that the snare meant the presence of men and that doubtless they would soon come to inspect their noose, for his own knowledge of primitive hunting taught him that they would not leave their snares long untended, since in the event of a catch, if they would have it at all, they must claim it soon lest it fall prey to carnivorous beasts or birds. ”

“ BUILDING THE WEB
THE fowling-snare is one of man's ingenious villainies. With lines, pegs and poles, two large, earth-coloured nets are stretched upon the ground, one to the right, the other to the left of a bare surface. ”

“ When a bird stepped on the treadle, it tripped the snare and a loop closed about its feet, hoisting it aloft. To divert large ground birds and mammals into the snare, natives placed brush barriers along the top of a ridge for one or two miles. ”

“ SOFTLY, O midnight Hours!
Move softly o'er the bowers
Where lies in happy sleep a girl so fair!
For ye have power, men say,
Our hearts in sleep to sway,
And cage cold fancies in a moonlight snare.
Round ivory neck and arm
Enclasp a separate charm;
Hang o'er her poised, but breathe nor sigh nor prayer:
Silently ye may smile,
But hold your breath the while,
And let the wind sweep back your cloudy hair!
Bend down your glittering urns,
Ere yet the dawn returns,
And star with dew the lawn her feet shall tread ”

“ For the bird which has once been captured by the snare, yet afterwards escaped, and the deer which has fallen into the net, but has broken through it, are hard to be captured again with the like; since experience becomes a teacher of caution to every one. ”

“ Plates VIII to XIX appear, from the figures, to relate to the chase. VIII-XIII are devoted almost wholly to figures of animals (mostly deer) caught in snares. It appears from these figures that the method of snaring animals was to fasten a cord to the top of a slender tree, bend it down, and fasten a, slip-knot around a spring or trigger, so that when touched by the fore foot of the animal it would slip up and tighten, and thus hold up the fore part of the body. There can be no doubt that the elongate white stems to which the cords are tied represent trees or wood. ”

“ In determining where to set deadfalls or locate snares if you will keep in mind the dens where each winter you have caught fur-bearing animals, or their tracks have often been seen in the snow or mud, and build your traps and construct snares at or near such places you are pretty sure to not go astray. ”

“ Long practice and delicate skill are essential to successful snaring. First, the loop itself into which the hare is to run his head must be of the exact size. If it be too small he will simply thrust it aside; if too large his body will slip through, and his hind leg will be captured: being crooked, it draws the noose probably. Then if caught by the hind leg, the wretched creature, mad with terror, will shriek his loudest; and a hare shrieks precisely like a human being in distress. The sound, well understood by the watchers, will at once reveal what is going forward. ”

“ Yet even then he carried a house on his back, a tiny, perfect shell, into which he could creep when danger threatened.
“Some people say I am very slow,” said the snail, “but they forget I have only one foot and carry my house on my back. Yet I am not complaining, for I have a head in which [268] are my eyes, mouth, feelers, and organs of smell, while my relative, the oyster, having no head, has to wear his eyes, ears, and feelers on his mantle and his mouth near his hinge, poor fellow! Even my own cousin, the land-snail, has her eyes on long feelers, and has to draw them in if danger is near. ”

“ She seemed the muse of that sweet spot,
The lady of the plain,
And all was dull where she was not,
Till we met there again.
EVENING 'T is evening: the black snail has got on his track,
And gone to its nest is the wren,
And the packman snail, too, with his home on his back,
Clings to the bowed bents like a wen.
The shepherd has made a rude mark with his foot
Where his shadow reached when he first came,
And it just touched the tree where his secret love cut
Two letters that stand for love's name. ”

“ They are content to straddle the crawling, leather-jointed circumspection that they call knowledge. The bird flutters to his mate, sings, soars, and is taken before night by the fowler. The snail creeps his rheumy round covered with the slime and slobber of prudence, to rot in the end under a tree-stump, unless some good throstle cracks him prematurely on a stone. ”

“ THE SPIRAL SNAIL “WHEN the snail crawls, it bears aloft, as you know, four horns.”
“Horns that come out and go in at will,” added Jules.
“Horns that the animal turns every way,” said Emile, “when you put the shell on the live coals. Then the snail sings be-be-be-eou-eou.”
“Stop that cruel play, my child. The snail does not sing; it is complaining, in its own way, of the fiery tortures. Its slime, coagulated by the heat, first swells and then shrinks, and the air that escapes by little puffs produces that dying wail. ”

“ A few disordered movements betray a brief excitement on the part of the Snail, and then everything ceases: the foot no longer crawls, the front-part loses its graceful curve, the tentacles become limp and give way under their own weight, dangling feebly like a broken stick. ”

“ In summer, when walking out in country places, we often find pretty little snail-shells. Some of these are empty, and some have a live snail within.
2. The shell is the snail's house. It is a queer house, as it grows on him, as hair grows on a cat; and he carries it about on his back when he walks.
3. The snail lives upon plants. In the day he finds some safe place under a stone, or in a hole, draws himself into his house, and goes to sleep. In the night he comes out and feeds. ”

“ Occasionally a long serpentine form would suddenly wriggle itself to a height of a foot and a half above the glassy surface of the water, producing such a deceptive imitation of a snake that at first I had some difficulty in believing it to be the neck of a bird ”

“ Great snails crawled upon the tufts of rank grass wet with the autumnal dews that the sun had failed to dry, and upon the glistening hart's-tongue ferns, and they looked just the kind of snails that witches would collect to make a hell-broth. ”

“ Why has the snail four tentacula attached to its head?
Because the insect, having no other limbs, is provided with those projecting members, the lower two serving as feelers and the upper two also as feelers and eyes. These, projecting in the front of the animal, impart to it a consciousness of surrounding objects, and especially of those which lie in its path.
1310. Why is the snail able to move, without feet? ”

“ Instantly the beautiful snake lifts its head, expands its hood—a loose skin about the neck which it makes large or small at pleasure—and creeps out, waving its body gracefully while the music lasts, and when it ceases, dropping down again into the basket. ”

“ Then, looking more closely, I saw the glistening form of the black snake, and the quick movement of his head as he tried to seize the birds. The sparrows darted about and through the grass and weeds, trying to beat the snake off. Their tails and wings were spread, and, panting with the heat and desperate struggle, they presented a most singular spectacle. ”

“ A snail may possess over twenty thousand tiny flinty teeth set on a ribbon so as to make a mowing-machine for the vegetable matter on which it feeds. With its aid also you might study the life-history of a mollusc from the egg onwards, and be able to determine by minute anatomical points whether two molluscs were of the same species or not—a matter in which the shape or appearance of the shell is not always a safe guide. ”

“ After what seemed like a long walk, he sighted his third snail and turned left. For a moment he considered speaking to the snail, remembering that in all the stories he'd heard speech was standard equipment for all forms of life in fairyland, but he refrained because of the petulant look on the snail's face. ”

“ The relentless mouth, with its snag-tooth, the pinched nostrils, the long, sloping nose, the eyes scaled like those of a snake, present a type of extravagant melancholy even more detestable than that of the English king. ”

“ B is the body, soft and with a surface generally wrinkled or covered with small tubercles. F is the foot or muscular pad which forms the foot by the wavelike contractions of which it moves. H is the head, bearing the tentacles T1 and T2, of which the upper pair have the eyes, E. The mantle, M, makes the shell by secreting lime, etc. In it is the breathing orifice, BO, obvious in the slug, but in the snail nearly hidden by the shell. L in the snail is the spiral part, the liver, and it occupies a large part of the shell. ”

“ When the sun grew hot overhead and the way was over open savannah country, I would see something moving on the ground at my side and always keeping abreast of me. A small snake, one or two feet long. No, not a small snake, but a sinuous mark in the pattern on a huge serpent’s head, five or six yards long, always moving deliberately at my side. If a cloud came over the sun, or a fresh breeze sprang up, gradually the outline of that awful head would fade and the well-defined pattern would resolve itself into the motlings on the earth. ”

“ She was not more than three feet in height and was very corpulent; her grizzly skin was gluey and cold, like a snail's and her thin red hair fell in locks of unequal length around her throat, which was disfigured by a goitre. Her large, flat hands looked like the fins of a shark, her dress was made of snail's skins and her mantle of the skins of toads. ”

“ Having completed her task she stepped down backwards and, as her foot touched the ground, she knew that she had trodden upon a snake.
Even as she stood poised, one foot on the ground, the other on the stool, both hands gripping the high shelf, she felt the reptile whipping, writhing, jerking, lashing, flogging at her ankle and instep, coiling round her leg.... And in the fraction of a second the thought flashed through her mind: “If its head is under my foot, or too close to my foot for its fangs to reach me, I am safe while I remain as I am. ”

“ In the evening, by lamp light, they become lively, and then, twisting about and flashing forth their snaky splendors, they present a fine spectacle. The snake-room, with its walls of glass, behind which the snakes live, reminded me of the old northern myth of Nastrond, the roof of which was woven of snakes’ backs, the final home of the ungodly—an unpleasant, but vigorous picture. ”

“ In the oval flower bed the snail, whose shell had been stained red, blue, and yellow for the space of two minutes or so, now appeared to be moving very slightly in its shell, and next began to labour over the crumbs of loose earth which broke away and rolled down as it passed over them. ”

“ Your snail will creep to any sentiment you choose as you direct it. Hers is left free in its movements, but it will follow the same course that its mate has chosen. Thus the sweetest messages can be sent across the ocean. The last word of the snail in America, 'All's well,' or 'Non ti scordar di me,' can be made to echo sweetly on a far-off shore. ”

“ Snails, too, play a very important part in our ordinary daily food, although the snail-hater would scoff at the idea. But it is even so. What think you imparts to South Down and Dartmoor mutton its fine flavour and highly nutritive properties? Snails! The grass upon which they feed teems with small snails of the Helix caperata species, and these, with or without the will of the sheep, form part of the diet of the latter, taken with the grass. ”