HOUSE RATS AND MICE. 



13 



Fig. 



-Guillotine trap with wooden 



B677M 



1 triggei' plate. 



Small guillotine 

 traps baited with 

 oatmeal will soon rid 

 an ordinary dwelling 

 of the smaller pests. 



Cage trap. — When 

 rats are abundant, 

 the large French 

 wire cage traps may 

 be used to advantage. 

 They should be made 

 of stiff wire, well reinforced. Many of those sold in stores are useless, 

 because a full-grown rat can bend the light wires apart and so escape. 



Cage traps may be baited and left open for several nights until the 

 rats are accustomed to enter them to obtain food. They should then 

 be closed and freshly baited, when a larger catch may be expected, 

 especially of young rats (fig. 8). As many as 25, and even more, 

 partly grown rats have been taken at a time in one of these traps. 

 It is better to cover the trap than to leave it exposed. A short board 

 should be laid on the trap and an old cloth or bag or a bunch of hay 

 or straw thrown carelessly over the top. Often the trap may be 

 placed with the entrance opposite a rat hole and fitting it so closely 

 that rats can not pass through without entering the trap. If a single 

 rat is caught it may be left in the trap as a decoy to others. 



Notwithstanding the fact that sometimes a large number of rats 

 may be taken at a time in cage traps, a few good guillotine traps 

 intelligently used will prove more effective in the long run. 



Figure-4 trigger trap. — The old-fashioned box trap set with a fig- 

 ure-4 trigger is sometimes useful to secure a wise old rat that refuses 

 to be enticed into a modern trap. Better still is a simple deadfall — 



Fig. 8. — Cage trap with catch of rats. 



B50SM 



