Man-traps, engines for the terrifying of trespassers and poachers (formerly often indicated by the warning notice 'man-traps and spring-guns set here'), resembled gigantic rat-traps four feet long. They may be seen in museums; it is, since 1827, illegal to set them save indoors between sunset and sunrise, as a defence against burglars.
Man-traps
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 7: Maltebrun to Pearson, p. 28
Source scan(s): p. 0037