318 Practical Game Preserving. 



another never really closed will never be favoured with 

 a visit. Many of the misdeeds of this kind in rural districts, 

 laid to the credit of the fox, would, we have no doubt, be 

 more correctly set down as the result of a polecat's visit, 

 or even of a stoat's. Especially, too, when chickens are 

 about, or in cases where pheasants are reared, the losses 

 sustained are sometimes even disastrous in their continual 

 occurrence. However, steps are rarely taken in the right 

 direction, and rats, foxes, and dogs are freely calumniated 

 for what should no doubt be seen as the work of the vermin 

 we mention. Both the stoat and the polecat, before entering 

 a poultry shed, make a very careful examination of the 

 outside, looking evidently for a place by which to escape, 

 in case their entrance be occupied at the critical time. The 

 survey they hold leaves them very open to be trapped, 

 and therefore, mischief having once been perpetrated, traps 

 should immediately be set at intervals all round the house, 

 some small trap being employed, if considered advisable. 

 If any drain holes run through the wall, a trap should 

 be placed in them, and in the case of wooden sheds where 

 a sliding door at the bottom forms the place of ingress 

 and egress of the fowls, it is advisable to fasten this 

 securely, leaving about 3in. open at the bottom. Upon 

 the inside place some traps all along this opening, fixed 

 open, and with the jaws to the ground, about 2in. distance 

 from the hole ; a good way to do this is to have a square 

 board about i8in. wider and 6in. higher than the slide door; 

 this board leaning over the hole prevents the fowls getting 

 mixed with the gins, and these latter can be suspended 

 over the board by means of their chains. For setting 



