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Show 52 THE SHORTEST ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA. Mr. Reese, Captain Simpson's guide, avers that he lias seen them roast their rats without in any way cleaning them, and then eat them with great relish. The rats are caught by a dead- fall, made of a heavy stone and supported by a kind of figure 4. They are also speared in their holes by a stick turned up slightly at the end and pointed; and with another of spade- form at the end, the earth is dug away until the animal is reached and taken. The Go- shoots, as well as the Diggers, constantly carry about with them these instruments, which, with the bow and arrow and net, constitute their chief means for the capture of game. The nets, made of ex-cellent twine fabricated of a species of flax which grows in certain localities in this region, are three feet wide and of very considerable length. With this kind of net they catch the rabbit, as follows. A fence or bar-rier made of the wild- sage bush plucked up by the roots, or cedar- branches, is laid across the paths of the rabbits, and on this fence the net is hung vertically. The rabbits are then driven from their lairs, and, in running along their usual paths, are intercepted by the net and caught in its meshes. The only large game they have is the antelope, and this they are seldom able to kill. Their mode of taking him is as follows. They make a sort of trap inclosure of a V- shape, formed by two fences of in-definite lengths, composed of cedar- branches, and con-verging from a wide open mouth to a point. Within the inclosure and near the vertex of the angle a hole is dug, and in this the Indian secretes himself with his bow and arrow. The antelope, being driven |
