No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 205 



Also, dogs or cats are likely to get into traps and carry them 

 off, or to carry off captive rats, traps and all or to steal the 

 bait. Hence, it is best to use traps only in buildings, boxes or 

 other receptacles where dogs, cats and chickens can be shut 

 out. In outdoor trapping, wild birds may be caught, unless 

 the traps are concealed in boxes, holes or trenches. When 

 dogs and cats and food other than that in the traps have been 

 disposed of, trapping may be undertaken with a certainty of 

 success. 



Sjiajj Traps. — The time-honored snap trap, which has been 

 used by fur trappers for generations, is the steel trap. This is 

 a good rat trap if properly set and concealed, but it is a cruel 

 and inhuman machine unless used in such a manner as to kill 

 the victim at once. As ordinarily set, without any precaution, 

 it may now and then get a rat, particularly in grocery or pro- 

 vision stores, where food supplies are handled much. If a 

 number of traps are kept constantly set so as to spring at a 

 very light touch, and placed in rat runways or next the walls 

 behind barrels or packing cases, a rat may now and then 

 blunder into one, even if it is not baited. Sometimes unbaited 

 traps are most successful, especially when the rats have become 

 suspicious of baited traps. Rats may in time become so heed- 

 less of unbaited traps as to get caught, for the trap is far more 

 patient than the rat; it can always afford to wait, and the rat 

 is often necessarily in a hurry. 



He who does not care to go to the trouble of covering or dis- 

 guising his traps may succeed by first setting a number, baited, 

 with the jaws open and the springs bound down by fine wire 

 so that the traps cannot snap. The bait — bacon or strong 

 toasted cheese — may be hung over the pan or tied to it. 

 Fine sand or meal may be kept strewn about the traps for 

 several days, and when the bait is taken nightly, and tracks in 

 the meal or sand show that the rats have learned to run over 

 the traps freely, the wire may be removed and the traps care- 

 fully set and baited. Some success has followed hanging the 

 bait over the pan, but it is a cruel expedient as the rat is 

 commonly caught alive by one leg. 



No trap is more effective than the "break-back" or guillotine 

 trap, provided with a wire fall, driven by a coiled wire spring 



