VERMIN AND TRAPPING 79 



over of some wheat-stacks. By the following morn- 

 ing I do not think one rat remained alive. 



The reason for the wholesale dressing of rat- 

 haunts not too long before the game-birds begin 

 to nest is that the presence of rat corpses in the 

 burrows deters immigrating relatives from tarrying 

 just long enough to allow the birds to hatch in 

 peace. Apart from the obvious reason, why I 

 insist so strongly on liberality at the first dosing 

 is that those rats which otherwise would have to 

 go short will not be over-keen to accept a second 

 invitation, after observing the dismal fate of their 

 brethren. Provided that I could keep my ground 

 clear of rats till the birds had hatched, I had to 

 consider myself lucky, since there were tens of 

 thousands of rats on the neighbouring farms, on 

 two of which the farmers seemed indifferent to their 

 presence. During the thrashing of the corn in a 

 barn on one of these farms, within five hundred 

 yards of some of my best partridge ground, 

 seventeen hundred rats were killed. Perhaps the 

 farmer kept them out of false economy, since he 

 used them as fuel for making steam when threshing. 



I lost hundreds of eggs every year by rooks, 

 besides probably as many more that I knew 

 nothing of; and little pheasants up to ten days 

 old on the rearing-field had to be guarded con- 

 stantly or one might find that rooks had left 

 only bits of fluff and the legs of a score or so. 



