REARING AND PROTECTION. 79 



eighteen inches long, and stick two or three round each nest, 

 about a foot from it. The smell of the oil will keep the foxes 

 from approaching. 



In the vicinity of dwellings, there is no more dangerous 

 enemy to pheasants than the common cat. Captain Darwin, 

 in his " Game Preserver's Manual," writes as follows : 

 " There is no species of vermin more destructive to game than 

 the domestic cat. People not aware of her predatory habits 

 would never for a moment suppose that the household 

 favourite that appears to be dozing so innocently by the fire 

 is most probably under the influence of fatigue caused by a 

 hard night's hunting in the plantations. How different also 

 in her manner is a cat when at home and when detected 

 prowling after the game. In the first of the two cases she is 

 tame and accessible to any little attentions ; in the latter she 

 seems to know she is doing wrong, and scampers off home as 

 hard as she can go. Luckily there is no animal more easily 

 taken in a trap, if common care be used in setting. Box 

 traps, however, with drop doors open at both ends, are much 

 the most efficacious, as the victims, whether cats, dogs, rats, 

 and even foxes, walk into them without suspicion, and, treading 

 on the platform in the middle, cause both doors to fall 

 simultaneously, when the animal is secured unharmed, and 

 may either be liberated or shot into a sack and drowned. 



Laying poisoned meat is now illegal, and restrictions are 

 placed upon the sale of arsenic by statute ; nevertheless I 

 would caution anyone against the use of that drug, the employ- 

 ment of which is attended with much cruelty, as with some 

 animals it is immediately rejected by vomiting, but not before 

 it has laid the foundation of a violent and painful inflammation 

 of the stomach, from which the animal suffers for weeks, but 

 rarely dies. If it is absolutely necessary to use poison for 

 cats, a little carbonate of baryta, mixed up with the soft roe 

 of a red herring, is the most certain and speedy that can be 

 employed, but a good keeper should know how to keep his 

 preserves clear of vermin without the aid of poison. 



