220



Dr. Maurice Amsler :



idea is probably as old as the hills, but one or two bird-keepers to

whom I have mentioned it had not heard or thought of it.


Mice for many years have robbed us of a goodly number of

nests either by disturbing the sitting birds or by actually devouring

the young birds. I have tried various methods of destruction—traps,

poison, and virus—all more or less successfully, but with the con¬

stantly recurring experience that they reappeared. This season I

can boast of having only seen one mouse, and that one was dead.


My method is to keep in each aviary a box of canary-seed

which has been soaked in a saturated solution of strychnine and then

dried. One seed is probably sufficient to kill a barn-door fowl, and

there is an obvious risk of poisoning one’s birds if one is not careful.

I have been using this method for the past year, and have also given

poisoned seed to three friends and know of no accident.



The secret of success depends on placing the poison in a box so

constructed that birds cannot get into it and that mice are not likely

to carry seed out. The above sketch depicts a box about 18 in. long,

with a |-in. hole at each end. There are two partitions inside the

box reaching almost up to the lid, which is on top. The pan of

poisoned seed is in the middle. Any mouse entering the box has to

climb over the partition in order to get at the seed, does not trouble

to climb back after taking a seed, and dies on the spot; in fact, I

have often found them in the pan itself, so quick is the death.


I have found as many as twelve in one night, and a friend

who used it in an empty aviary killed fourteen, most of which were

in the saucer containing the seed.


I make it a rule never to open the box inside the aviary and

to burn all dead mice.


As these notes appear to deal exclusively with my methods



