432 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



boiiale may be mixed with eight parts of rolled oats, and enough 

 water added to wet the mixture and make a thick dough. 



For poisoning rats in fields or in places where the lives of domestic 

 animals are not endangered, grain soaked in strychnine sirup is 

 successful. A good plan is to bait the animals for several nights 

 with unpoisoned grain, until they are accustomed to feeding at a 

 particular place. Then feed nothing or very little for a single night, 

 and the next follow Avith a liberal quantit}^ of poisoned grain. 



The common brown rat becomes wary and suspicious with age and 

 experience, and is then difficult to trap or to poison. Care to avoid 

 handling baits or traps and skill in choosing localities and other- 

 wise allaying suspicion are essential to success with old rats. The 

 young are no more difficult to trap or poison than are mice. 



POISONING :moles. 



Moles are not vegetarians, but feed almost exclusively on earth- 

 worms and insects. They do much good*by destroying white grubs, 

 the larvae of various species of June bugs, or May beetles. They do 

 no harm except to lawns; and the actual injury is slight, except in 

 times of drought, when the grass dies along their tunnels. Rolling 

 is usually a remedy for the injury. 



The disrepute attaching to moles as destroyers of crops or plants 

 is due largely to a misapprehension of facts. The pine mouse and 

 other species of meadow mice habitually utilize the mole runs and 

 destroy potatoes and other roots and vegetables, while the innocent 

 mole bears the blame. The mice may be readily killed by placing 

 poisoned grain in the mole runs. 



It is claimed that moles may be poisoned by small bits of meat 

 into which strychnine has been inserted, or by earthworms cut and 

 sprinkled with powdered strychnine. Experiments by the writer 

 have given negative results. Experiments with the soft, milky ker- 

 nels of fresh green sweet corn soaked in strychnine sirup and placed 

 in the mole's tunnels were more successful, several dead moles having 

 been dug out by dogs within short distances of the places where the 

 poison had been inserted. 



CAUTION. 



All operations with poisons for noxious mammals should be con- 

 ducted with every safeguard against accidents to persons, domestic 

 animals, and game. Wisely used and carefully handled, poisons 

 need not endanger lives other than those aimed at. Ordinarily, bene- 

 ficial birds have suffered much from squirrel and prairie-dog poisons, 

 especially in winter. Experience has taught the writer that during 

 poisoning operations on the plains, if unpoisoned grain is scattered 

 freely in the vicinity of watering places, the birds will remain there 

 and few of them will find the poisoned grain intended for the rodents. 



O 



