i4o. THE MOUSE 



MOUSE. The House or Domestic Mouse may be said to serve no 

 useful purpose to any culture, but is a pest in the dwelling, out- 

 building, stackyard, garden, etc., everywhere in presence of food 

 and shelter gnawing and destroying structural work and feeding 

 on animal and vegetable produce used as food for man and beast. 

 To compass its destruction in dwellings, granaries, outbuildings and 

 garden structures there is no trap equal to the Mouse or Small Bird 

 Trap (Fig. 89), the table being baited with a piece of crust of cheese 

 secured with fine string, and the trap set " tickle " so as to readily 

 spring with the weight of a mouse, placing at the mouth of a hole 

 or where the animal frequents, no covering being required. 'The 

 mouse will soon " smell out " the bait, and the animal be caught 

 by the body and killed speedily. In this way several mice may be 

 captured one after the other in a single evening by one trap, the 

 operator taking them out as caught and re-setting the trap. It is 

 advisable to have a string to the trap and secure it to a fixed 

 object where there are cats, otherwise the mouse and trap may 

 be carried off. 



FIG. 89. MOUSE OR SMALL BIRD TRAP. 

 (Supplied by Mr. H. LANE, Eagle Works, W ednes field, Staffordshire.) 



In gardens and nurseries the house mouse, as well as the Wood 

 or Long-tailed Field Mouse'is sometimes very troublesome. For the 

 capturing and destroying of both several simple as well as numerous 

 ingenious contrivances have been employed. The commonest 

 and most approved is the Figure 4 Trap (Fig. go L). It consists 

 of a flat tile or slate (q), and on soft or cloddy ground a similar one 



