48 OPERATIONS OF GABDENING. PART I. 



the seedlings rise above ground, and upon a crop of Peas they 

 feed ravenously. 



Nets, when they can be obtained, are I believe the only effi- 

 cient means of sheltering plants from the mischief they do them. 



PARROTS. The little green parrot is a most destructive bird to 

 ripening fruit, unless nets be thrown over the tree to keep it off. 



ANIMALS. FLYING FOXES. These commit their depreda- 

 tions on ripening fruit by night. A net is the only safeguard 

 against them. 



EATS. No piece of ground where rats have established 

 themselves can be of any use for cultivation until they have 

 been extirpated. But this I have never found a matter of 

 much difficulty. I have succeeded in immediately getting rid 

 of them by making pellets, about the size of a marble, with 

 flour and water mixed with a little powdered arsenic. These, 

 placed at the entrance of the freshly-made holes in the evening, 

 have disappeared in the morning, and the rats with them. 



Captain Weston states that blowing the fumes of sulphur 

 into their holes by means of a common bellows is an effectual 

 method of destroying them.* 



SQUIRRELS ; BABOONS. These animals are sometimes very 

 destructive to fruit, from which I know of no way of keeping 

 them off, but by driving them away as soon as observed. 



BABBITS. These, where they abound, as I believe they do in 

 the Botanical Gardens, are very destructive, and I hardly know 

 any protection from them but a fence of wire-netting. 



JACKALS. These do no very great harm in a garden beyond 

 occasionally scratching up a hole to the injury of any plant 

 that may be in the way. For those, however, who consider 

 them a nuisance they would gladly get rid of, 1 subjoin the 

 following extract : 



" Our host told us that about two years ago he got some mix 

 vomica and other poisons, mixed them with tallow, and enclosed 

 small lumps of this mixture in pieces of the entrails of sheep, 

 which he dragged about his yard in the evening, and then hung 

 upon a bush, afterwards dropping pieces containing poison along 

 the track. The first morning after he had done this, fifteen jackals 

 were found dead about the premises."! 



* 'Journal of Agri-Hort. Society,' vol. ix. p. c. 

 f Ellis's ' Madagascar,' p. 222. 



