Ground Vermin Rat Hunting. 405 



wants to keep going at a time. One can thus at intervals 

 pick up any apparently becoming lazy, and substitute the 

 same number of fresh ones, eager to commence work them- 

 selves and enliven the rest. There must also be a fair 

 sprinkling of dogs, but not too many, nor any other than 

 those which are really steady to their work and not unduly 

 excitable, for nothing is worse and more injurious to any 

 chance of effecting good results than a cur running hither 

 and thither, without doing more than yelp and distract the 

 other dogs' attention. A good number of people should 

 be got together and a plentiful supply of means wherewith 

 to kill any escaping rats ; nothing is better, in our opinion, 

 than a good flat shovel for this purpose. If any outlying 

 exits of drains in any way connected with the parts being 

 ferreted exist, they should be provided with wire eel traps, 

 which are sometimes used as rat traps under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances, but are of little avail ; however, when properly 

 fixed, under the conditions named, they often catch a good 

 many. One must be careful to look at them continually, 

 otherwise a ferret might get in, and if among five or six 

 rats would have rather a rough time of it. In order to make 

 this wholesale ferreting about the buildings a success, an 

 entire day should be devoted to it, commencing early in the 

 morning, and as it will probably take place in autumn or 

 winter, it is necessary to take up the ferrets at from two 

 to three o'clock. Corn-ricks, when rats unluckily have 

 taken up their abode therein and are devastating them, 

 should be immediately cleared out by ferrets, and every 

 possible means of access to rats stopped. If ricks be 

 built simply on the ground, then constant trapping and 



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