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. 
