RECENT RA T LORE 269 



sport, have a place in the * Badminton Series.' He 

 describes and accounts for ' good ' days and * bad ' 

 with idogs and ferrets in the hedgerows, with a 

 seriousness which would do credit to ' Brocklesby.' 



The reason for this business-like treatment is to 

 be found in the age of the writer when he engaged 

 in these pursuits. As a boy, he had trained his dogs 

 and ferrets so well, that his services were in request 

 as a competent and paid rat-catcher ; and the total 

 of the day's earnings, at twopence per rat, is duly 

 entered after the description of each day's sport. Old 

 ladies living in large country houses used to send 

 for him to devise means for ridding them of demon 

 rats who baffled the regular practitioners, and the 

 discoveries made in these visits are as curious as 

 anything yet published in the history of household 

 pests. In one case, a house was apparently perfectly 

 free from rats, yet every night a rat came to the 

 fowl-house, and carried off hen's eggs, or young 

 ducks and chickens. Hedges, ditches, sheds, out- 

 houses, and stables were examined with the aid of a 

 trained dog, yet not a trace of a rat could be dis- 

 covered. The dog was even made to run over the 

 roofs of the buildings, in case the rats were lurking 

 under the tiles. One afternoon, Mr Barkley requested 

 that a dog, which was tied up in a kennel in a 

 backyard, might be removed, as its barking disturbed 



