2 6 5 Wild Duck. 



Round about the run, 6in. to pin. from its sides, several 

 steel traps should be set, and carefully covered. If left 

 undisturbed, the marauding vermin are sure to seek to get 

 at the protected ducklings, and become caught in one or 

 other of the traps. 



Magpies, jays, and hawks will carry off the ducklings 

 from time to time. You can always make sure of these 

 gentry, however, by using a pole-trap, which should be 

 worked in the following manner. Set up a pole about 

 9ft. high and 6in. diameter at the top, which should 

 be hollowed out about lin. deep so as to contain 

 a 4in. round hawk-trap. To the trap a chain with 

 a ring should be attached, and this ring should be 

 fixed round a length of stiff wire, let into and running 

 down the side of the post, so that when the vermin is 

 caught and flutters it pulls the trap off the post and slides 

 down the wire to the ground. The trap requires no bait. 

 Wherever the rearing-fields for wild ducklings are any 

 distance from the dwelling-place, so that constant obser- 

 vation cannot be maintained over them, one or two pole- 

 traps set up in this manner should always be provided 

 as a safeguard against winged vermin. The traps should 

 not be set to go off too lightly, otherwise small and in- 

 offensive birds will be caught. 



I have also known cats with poaching proclivities to 

 prove responsible for many lost ducklings; but they are 

 easily taken in a box-trap baited with the head of a 

 freshly-killed rabbit. 



As soon as the ducklings are removed to the water- 

 side, they are naturally more exposed to the attacks of 

 vermin, and once they are free of the coops, foxes, if 

 they are plentiful in the neighbourhood, prove a constant 

 source of danger. To ensure freedom from molesta- 

 tion from the furred and feathered vermin which have 



