io8 Studies hi Rat Catching, [ch. vi. 



rat's hole. Fancy yourself in its place, 

 going down a lot of dark crooked passages 

 that you don't know, only just wide enough 

 to allow you to pass, and have to face a beast 

 somewhat like yourself and as big, that you 

 know will attack you. Why, if ferrets got 

 V.C.'s, they would, on high days and holi- 

 days when they wished to display them all, 

 have to employ a string of sandwich-men 

 walking behind them with the boards covered 

 with V.C. Three or four times in my life I 

 have had ferrets die of the wounds they have 

 received from rats. I have had them in 

 hospital for weeks, and I have had them 

 blinded. Speaking of blind ferrets, I am not 

 much of an oculist, but I don't believe a 

 ferret can see in the dark. I never could 

 find any difference between the way my 

 blind ferret worked in a hole and that of one 

 with good eyes ; in fact, my blind ferret was 

 as good a little beast as ever killed a rat, 



