48 TILE BROWN EAT IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Continue this for a week or more until the rats get bold and impatient 

 to get at the milk. Then mix arsenic with the milk and await results. 

 This plan is said to entirely clean a barn of rats. a 



DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



Among the domestic animals often employed to kill rats are the 

 familiar dog, cat, and ferret. 



Dogs. — The value of dogs as ratters can not be appreciated by per- 

 sons who have had no experience with a trained animal. The ordi- 

 nary cur and the larger breeds of dogs seldom develop the necessary 

 qualities for ratters. Small Irish, Scotch, and fox terriers when 

 properly trained are superior to other breeds, and under favorable 

 circumstances may be relied upon to keep the farm premises reason- 

 ably free from rats. 



With some preliminary training most terriers learn to hunt rats 

 independently and thus become doubly useful on the farm. Several 

 terriers owned in Washington are said to have destroyed over 1,000 

 rats each, and the owner of one of them states that his dog has 

 killed that number in one year. A young terrier kept in the National 

 Capitol is said to have destroyed over 400 rats in that building. 



Cats. — However valuable cats may be as mousers, few of them 

 learn to catch rats. The ordinary house cat is too well fed and con- 

 sequently too lazy to undertake the capture of an animal as formi- 

 dable as the brown rat. Birds and mice are much more to its liking. 



Ferrets. — Tame ferrets, like weasels, are inveterate foes of rats, 

 and can follow the rodents into their retreats. Under favorable cir- 

 cumstances they are useful aids to the rat catcher, but their value is 

 greatly overestimated. For effective work they require experienced 

 handfing and the additional services of a dog or two. Dogs and 

 ferrets must be thoroughly accustomed to each other, and the former 

 must be quiet and steady instead of noisy and excitable. The ferret 

 is used only to bolt the rats, which are killed by the dogs. If un- 

 muzzled ferrets are sent into rat retreats, they are apt to make a kill 

 and then lie up after sucking the blood of their victim. Sometimes 

 they remain for hours in -the burrows or escape by other e^dts and 

 are lost. There is danger that these lost ferrets may adapt them- 

 selves to wild conditions and become a pest by preying upon poultry 

 and birds. 



FUMIGATION. 



Rats may be destroyed in their burrows in the fields and along" 

 river banks, levees, and dikes by the use of carbon bisulphid. A 

 wad of cotton or other absorbent material is saturated with the 

 liquid and then pushed into the burrow, the opening being packed 

 with earth to prevent the escape of the gas. All animals in the 



aE. H. Reihl, in Colman's Rural World, vol. 61, p. 27, January 29, 1908. 



