Practical Game-Preserving. 382 



off, and these may be advantageously employed as a 

 lure. Young chickens and ducklings too weak to sustain 

 existence may be employed in association with a set gin 

 or two, and pullets which chance to die are also very 

 good bait. 



Mice of all kinds, young and not too large rats, a mole 

 or a hedgehog, are often very successful, especially the 

 first-named, and I have frequently found a few gins with 

 mice tied on the plates singularly attractive when gingerly 

 set and covered in pastures where magpies are wont to 

 congregate. Another and rather unwieldy bait under the 

 circumstances is a sheep's head, or even a portion of a 

 sheepskin, or a young dead lamb. In either case, if 

 exposed in a field, magpies passing are sure to pay any 

 one of them a visit. 



In any case the baits should be pegged down where 

 their nature permits of it being done, and it is always 

 better to put down two or three traps to each bait, or so 

 to dispose the bait and the surroundings as to admit of but 

 one approach. I am not, however, at all in favour of the 

 formation of elaborate stockades in miniature leading up 

 to the bait, and through which the vermin are supposed to 

 pass. It requires more time, more skill, and more know- 

 ledge than the average keeper possesses to do this sort of 

 thing successfully. Generally speaking, the more simple 

 the manner in which the traps are set, and the more care- 

 ful the mode of covering them, the more successful they 

 prove. As regards the most likely places for placing 

 traps, it is only possible to point out a few which may 

 serve as a guide to the choice of others. 



When baits are employed, the best places to take mag- 

 pies are certainly in fields and open parts adjacent to, or in 

 the near neighbourhood of, coverts and plantations. I 

 think this bird rather prefers to pick up its food in the 



