RATS IN KENNELS. 43 



pating these wholesale marauders. In the Puckeridge 

 kennels the top of the cooler for the pudding is 

 covered with lattice-work, with lifting doors resem- 

 bling a rat-trap, which the feeder informed me, an- 

 swered well at times, but that after a " large catch'' of 

 perhaps ten or twelve brace, the rats became shy of 

 enterino; for a time. I once killed in and about my 

 kennel in Warwickshire, three hundred old ones in 

 one week besides a numerous small fry ; and a few 

 years after, when in Holderness, my men killed in va- 

 rious ways in the kennels, stables, and yards adjoining, 

 including the rickyard banks, seven hundred and thirty- 

 six rats between October and the following April. In 

 some places they give so much a dozen for the tails of 

 rats as an encouragement for their destruction. In 

 the stables of R. Watt, Esq., of Bishop Burton, near 

 Beverley some years ago, a lad, who had acquired 

 the character of a most expert rat-killer, was dis- 

 covered to have a method of making two tails out of 

 one, by skinning them and inserting a stick in so 

 ingenious a manner as to have escaped detection for a 

 considerable time. Two or three cats are good things 

 to encourage about a kennel ; I recollect I was much 

 amused when looking at Lord Middleton's hounds 

 when they were kept at Stratford-on-Avon, in seeing 

 two very large cats lying on the benches with them ; 

 I was informed by Harry Jackson the old huntsman, 

 that they were all on the very best terms, the cats going 

 in and out at their pleasure ; what made it appear more 

 extraordinary, was that there were three or four couples 

 of terriers, the most inveterate enemies of the feline 

 race, kept with them, which likewise appeared on an 



