114 Studies in Rat Catching, [ch. vii. 



engineer of the old school, to make railways, 

 etc.) a chemist, an electrician, a diplomat, a 

 lawyer, a financier and a contractor, and even 

 sometimes an honest man. If you are not 

 in the fashion you are left behind as an old 

 fogey, and so in this chapter we will discuss 

 the art of rabbit-catching ; and I trust all 

 schoolmasters will furnish you, their students, 

 with the opportunity of putting in practice in 

 the field what you learn from this book at 

 your desks. 



Well, now for the requirements. We have 

 got the dogs, we have got the ferrets, spade, 

 bag, etc. ; but for rabbiting we must have a 

 much more costly stock-in-trade if we are to 

 do a big business. We shall require an 

 ordinary gardener's spade for digging in soft 

 sandy ground, where the rabbit burrows 

 sometimes go in for yards, and as much as 

 ten feet deep down ; also another spade, 

 longer in the blade than our ratting one, the 



