100 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE -BOOK 



threshed betimes, to allow the rats to be properly 

 dealt with. A day or two beforehand he would 

 have the rats which lie in outlying burrows, in neigh- 

 bouring hedges, driven into the rick ; this can be 

 effected by tainting the burrows with paraffin a 

 simple plan is to blow in smoke from paraffin- 

 steeped rags with a bee-smoker. Then the keeper 

 would have the rick surrounded by half -inch wire- 

 netting. At the time of the threshing he would like 

 to be summoned to the scene, and he would see to it 

 that there were six or seven smart ratting -dogs 

 present, and that they were constantly supplied with 

 drinking-water. In one case where this plan was 

 tried, six hundred rats were accounted for from one 

 rick. Even after threshing and rat-killing on these 

 lines, rats will be found, if sought, in hidden holes 

 where the rick stood packed to suffocation to the 

 number perhaps of seventy or eighty. 



The keeper does not always take his ferrets with 



him when he goes ratting. Usually they are too 



large to enter rat-holes freely, and even the 



Ratting sma ll rat-ferret has difficulty in turning 



without J 



Ferrets round. And when a ferret has once entered 



a hole a rat cannot pass him, and so may 

 be prevented from bolting and showing sport. The 

 sport takes place underground, unless the ferret 

 retreats while there is time. The fight ends either 

 in severe punishment for the ferret or in the death of 



