no PROPAGATION OF WILD BIRDS 



sides their being in buildings in winter, he finds large num- 

 bers of them in stacks of straw, grain, hay, or piles of rubbish. 

 When he removes one of these in winter he has his trained 

 dog on hand and several men with clubs. The rats run out 

 and are struck or caught by the dog. Sometimes they kill a 

 large number in this way. 



Method of Rogers. A good dog is useful to trail maraud- 

 ing animals to their dens. Harry T. Rogers has such a dog 

 which is an expert in this line. He finds dynamite also a 

 good ally, as in the case of persistent weasels, which keep 

 returning and destroying numbers of his pheasants. The 

 dog trails the weasel to its hole, which is apt to be near a 

 tree, with the den usually under the outer ends of the roots. 

 Estimating where he thinks the den is, with a crowbar he 

 punches four holes, in a square of about 6 to 8 feet. In each 

 of these he sets off a pound stick of dynamite, and he says 

 he has never had the animal return after such treatment. 

 This is usually in summer when the weasel has young, and 

 thus he destroys the family. 



Methods of Mac Vicar. I was shown by A. G. MacVicar 

 the methods by which he cleaned up a preserve which had 

 become infested with rats. In brief, he began in early winter 

 a systematic campaign, with steel and box traps and ferret. 

 First he searched out rat-holes, in which snowfalls helped, 

 revealing the tracks. When the rodents get used to one sort 

 of trap, he changes to another. His tame ferret proves the 

 most effective agency of all. He described how, when he 

 first put it under the house, the rats poured out like a swarm 

 of fleas. A well- trained terrier he finds very useful on such 

 occasions. An energetic campaign of this sort, when one 

 makes a business of it, works wonders. 



Get after Vermin. A system for general wholesale poison- 

 ing has been described in the chapter on the wild turkey. 



