122 GAME rRESERVERS AXD BIHD PRESERVERS. 



and were found lying dead round them. This 

 happened to the head forester on our shooting 

 manor in 1870. But rats must be killed in the 

 winter when they are driven into our houses, 

 and before the next breeding season. Let men 

 lie awake at night and invent all possible means 

 of destroying them. Any means are better 

 than depending on cats. The remedy is then 

 worse than the disease ; while to depend upon 

 golden eagles and peregrine falcons becoming 

 sufficiently numerous to habitually fly round our 

 barns and ricks and kill our rats for us, will be, 

 we fear, to lean upon a broken reed. 



We must encourage the rat-catcher, and we 

 would pay him on the same principle upon which 

 the Emperors of China used, we believe, to pay 

 their physicians. These gentlemen had large in- 

 comes as long as he continued in good health, 

 but their pay stopped directly he was unwell, 

 and their heads were all cut off on the day on 

 which he died, no questions being asked, and 



