CONTROL OF VERMIN 109 



town, and country. These are giving birth to multitudes 

 more, born to a wretched, suffering existence. Many 

 people move away and leave their cats uncared for in town 

 in summer, or abandon them at their summer place when 

 they return to town. Such practices are barbarous and 

 reprehensible. Not only are they cruel to the cats, but 

 they are contributing to the destruction of the valuable 

 bird Hfe of the nation. It would be eminently proper and 

 merciful to have cats licensed, the number limited which 

 a person is allowed to keep, and organized effort made to 

 put mercifully out of the way the unowned residue. 



Rat Nuisance. Another nuisance and menace is from 

 rats. These have proved the undoing of many an effort 

 to propagate wild birds. It is hopeless to try where rats 

 are abundant. Cats have their proper place in the domestic 

 economy to reduce this pest, yet well-directed trapping and 

 poisoning can usually be made effective. The time to get 

 after rats is in winter, when they are driven into buildings 

 by the cold. In warm weather they scatter out into fields 

 and woods, where it is next to impossible to catch them. 

 They prove the despair of the keeper who does not attend 

 to them in winter while they can be reached. There are 

 various good rat traps on the market accessible to all. 

 A bulletin on the destruction of rats, by E. H. Forbush, 

 giving full detail of methods of destroying rats, is published 

 by the State Board of Agriculture, State House, Boston, 

 Massachusetts. See also Farmers' Bulletin No. 369, "How 

 to Destroy Rats," by the U, S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington. 



Points from Evans. Wallace Evans made the suggestion 

 to me that rats often refuse to enter a trap which is out in 

 plain sight, whereas they would enter if it were covered over 

 with a pile of burlap or nearly any other obstruction. Be- 



