KED-SQUILL POWDERS AS RATICIDES 
27 
PRAIRIE DOGS AND POCKET GOPHERS 
Prairie dogs and pocket gophers refused to eat freshly exposed 
squill baits. After rains had washed off the squill, the remaining 
baits were readily consumed. 
From these feeding and stomach-tube experiments, it seems safe 
to conclude that squill mixtures containing 5 to 10 per cent of squill 
powder either will not be eaten by animals other than rats, or will 
produce emesis with direct removal of the poison. Probably, there- 
fore, squill powders deserve the reputation accorded them in the 
literature of being generally harmless to farm animals. Of course, 
failure to produce death may be due to the animal's failure to eat 
and retain enough squill powder, rather than to relatively high species 
resistance or insusceptibility. 
YIELDS OF TOXIC SQUILL POWDERS ("RAT UNITS") 
Generally spealdng, squill bulbs lose 80 per cent of their weight 
during drying. The yields of powder obtained when samples were 
dried under stated conditions are given in Table 13. The weight of 
powder obtained in following a given process is not significant of 
the efficiency of the process unless the toxicity of the powder obtained 
is also considered. Two kilograms of a highly toxic powder may 
represent a better yield than 4 kilograms of a relatively nontoxic 
preparation. It is necessary to know both the yield and the toxicity 
in judging the efficiency of producing a squill powder under a given 
set of conditions. 
