Their wooden traps were in the shape of a small tunnel, with a wire in the middle which, when the mole passed through, set free a bent stick.

This stick pulled the wire and hung the mole.

Such mole-catchers' bows or springes used to be seen in every meadow, but are now superseded by the iron trap.
Springes with horsehair nooses on the ground were also set for woodcocks and for wild ducks.

It is said that a springe of somewhat similar construction was used for pheasants.

Horsehair nooses are still applied for capturing woodpeckers and the owls that spend the day in hollow trees, being set round the hole by which they leave the tree.