68 



back is its bitter taste, which warns the experienced rat, but 

 this warning often comes too late when a very small quantity 

 of the poison has been inserted in meat or fish. If used t)n 

 grain the taste must be disguised as much as possible with 

 syrup or sugar. 



Strychnine syrup may be prepared as follows: add half an 

 ounce of strychnia sulphate to a pint of boiling water; dissolve 

 it, then add a pint of thick sugar syrup and stir well. Oat- 

 meal or other cereals or bread crumbs may be thoroughly 

 moistened with the syrup and distributed in small quantities in 

 rat holes or runs. All that is not taken should be carefully 

 cleaned up. 



Strychnine and sweet corn: sometimes this is recommended, 

 but is dangerous to birds and poultry and should be used with 

 caution. It was used with some success at Thompson's Island 

 by soaking corn in a bucket of hot water in which an ounce of 

 strychnia sulphate had been dissolved. The corn was soaked 

 twenty-four hours, and sugar was added to counteract the 

 bitterness of the strychnine. It should be dried in the sun 

 where no bird or animal can get it. Some of it was taken by 

 rats and some rats were found dead. Dr. Rucker finds that 

 rats will rarely take wheat poisoned with strychnine although 

 squirrels will. 



Strychnine and fish: insert in a cut in a small piece of fish 

 as much powdered strychnine as will equal half a grain of 

 wheat (about one-tenth of a grain of the poison by weight). 

 This may be rolled inside the bait, and the pellet placed far 

 down a rat hole. 



Strychnine, butter and cheese: Mrs. E. O. ^Marshall of New 

 Salem, Massachusetts, reports continuous success with cheese 

 treated as follows: two grains of powdered strychnia are spread 

 with butter on a bit of cheese about one-quarter inch thick and 

 an inch square. This amount of strychnine should be sufficient 

 to kill at least ten rats, and probably would kill twenty if 

 divided into equal doses and administered separately to each 

 rat. Half a dozen pieces of cheese thus treated are used in the 

 granary now and then; these pieces disappear quickly, and 

 have so reduced the numbers of rats that where they were 

 formerly to be seen running in every direction now they are 



