CHAP. 

 X. 



43 2 



MAIZE 



(1) Parboil some ears of green or ripe maize, break them 

 into three or four pieces, slit down a row of the grains cutting 

 fairly deep, widen out the slit a little, fill the cut with a small 

 quantity of strychnine and squeeze the edges together again 

 to prevent the strychnine from falling out. Lay the poisoned 

 bait around the haunts of the jumping hares. 1 



(2) Scatter about the field tiny cake*, about a cubic centi- 

 metre in size, made of pollard or some attractive meal in which 



Fig. 103. — Jumping hare or spring-haas, Pedetes caffer. (Photograph from 

 specimen in Cambridge University Museum of Zoology.) 



has been mixed yellow phosphorus dissolved in carbon bisul- 

 phide (the cakes should not be too wet). Five hundred rab- 

 bits were reported killed at one time by this method. 2 



(3) A farmer 3 of the Orange Free State says that maize- 

 grain cooked with arsenic is effective, but that the bait must be 

 put out before the young maize plants come up, otherwise the 

 hares will leave the grain in favour of the fresh gr^en shoots. 



(4) The same farmer has had great success in driving off 

 the hares by watching carefully for the first signs of digging 



' Mr. J. J. Keely, of Mosita, in the V.A.J., January and March, igi2. 

 -Mr. J. van S. Wansbrough, of Holpan, Marico, Transvaal. 

 :; Mr. N. A, Oberholzer, of Marseilles, Orange Free State, 23 Nov., ign, in 

 V.A.J. 



