No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 213 



tiles may be used as leaders, or a drain may be left open and 

 the trough placed at its mouth leading into it. The whole thing 

 should be so covered as to weight it well, render it dark, and 

 keep animals larger than rats from getting at the traps. Thus 

 advantage is taken of the natural tendency of rats to enter 

 dark drains and dogs and cats are protected. 



Traps may be set without bait, as bait sometimes arouses the 

 suspicions of the rat. Twelve traps set in this way caught 

 eleven rats in one night, and a gardener on an English estate 

 catches from 100 to 150 rats in these troughs during the mild 

 English winter.^ A similar trough possibly might be made of 

 split tile of 5 or 6 inches interior diameter. 



A rat hole may be made in or under a rat-proof henhouse or 

 shed leading into a long rat-proof trough or covered waj^, with 

 a wire-covered opening at its farther end. The cover to this 

 may be raised, and if a trough it may be filled with water and 

 a number of steel traps set in it; if merely a covered way, flat 

 traps. The rat having gone in, must come out again, running 

 the gauntlet of the traps both ways. 



When a trap is not set in water it should be a large one and 

 the bait fastened to the pan; then when the trap springs it will 

 take the rat "amidships" or by the neck, and shut off his 

 breath at once, instead of catching him by the leg and allowing 

 him to suffer torture. 



In summer, outdoors, or in a shed or cellar at any time, an 

 old rat may be taken by placing a little cotton under the pan 

 of a steel trap, covering the trap entirely with loose dry earth 

 and using some strong-smelling bait, like fish, which may be 

 -covered by a little chaff. Rats like to dig up things. In un- 

 covering the bait your rat may be nipped. This plan works 

 effectively and continually. New steel traps should be covered 

 with earth for a day or two or well smoked, to take away the 

 smell of the iron, before using them. Where rats refuse to take 

 a bait tied to the pan the following plan may succeed: a dry 

 goods box may be sawed off to two inches in depth and filled 

 with bran or sawdust or some coarse meal. This may be set in 

 a place frequented by rats and unbaited traps set in it close to 



iThe Field (London), Vol. 121, March 15, 1913, p. 493. 



