LURING WILD ANIMALS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 688, 22 July 1914, Page 7

LURING WILD ANIMALS.

VARIOUS NOISES AND CALLS IMITATED BY INDIANS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. The "Indians have a call or tolc for nearly every animal. They can bring a fox right up to within 20 yards by making a sibilant noise produced by sucking the back of tha, hand.--. Reynard takes it to be the cry of a mouse in difficulties, and seldom fails to advance close to .the soimd. Stag caribou are tol'ed by granting loudly in two different ways, a vocal effort which, requires little 'skill or practice on the imitator's part. The "herd" stag'will quickly answer the , caller and advance for a short distance, but the '"travelling" stag will come very close if the calls arc properly made at suitable intervals. ■ Wild geese can be called when they first arrive in the. Spring by waging a white rag and imitating their '.'honking" call, but after tha first fortnight • they take little notice of the lure. A small white dog is also attractive to geese in the Spring, and one Indian I know has killed numbers of these birds by using cn3-for decoy. Beavers, when they have been undisturbed for long, are very cm io us in' relation to strange sounds. They will corne swimming out of thsir house even at the firing of a gun. The Indians .usually call them with a hissing noise or one produced by munching the. lips. Another favouris a sound made by tapping the" trousers with the hand. The most successful beaver-caller in Newfoundland killed great numbers of beavers, in the ope* season, by making a sound that resembled ths cutting of .chips efl a tree - tt is said that the unfortunate beavers never failed to respond to this noise. ■ . The Indian has no call for th 3 lynx,, but one or two of them can attract tha otter by 'imitating its shrill : whistle.—John G. Millais, in "Newfoundland and Its Untrodden Ways."