THE RAT AND THE CAT. 121 



we are not sure we would not bring one of 

 them up to this profession. There is a subdued 

 excitement about rat-hunting which is not un- 

 23leasant. We think we should prefer it to 

 reading for the law, for instance. 



As bird preservers we must kill rats, for 

 they eat every egg and kill every bird they can 

 get at. The rat asphyxiator seems a splendid 

 invention, and mucli as we fear and hate poison 

 it is sometimes the only remedy. But people 

 are so fearfully careless. We lost the best re- 

 triever we ever owned or saw through a friend 

 putting her into an outhouse where strychnine 

 had been laid a month previously for rats. We 

 knew some phosphoric paste spread on some 

 bread and butter and afterwards accidentally 

 thrown out, and eaten by a terrier. The owner 

 saw the dog eat the poison and gave him a 

 violent emetic and saved him. But a brood of 

 ducks ate the poison after the dog had brought 

 it up, and were all dead the next morning, and 

 oddly enough several rats eat the dead ducks 



