210 
Vermin of the Farm. 
It would not be difficult to add to its list of misdeeds, but a 
single addition must suffice. From repeated observations made 
in the woodlands of Sussex, extending over several years, the 
writer has come to regard the brown rat not only as one of the 
worst enemies of the game-preserver, but as the means very 
often of bringing unoffending creatures to death. He is a great 
devourer of pheasants’ food (to say nothing of young phea- 
sants), and when the latter are gathered under the foster hen 
at sundown, the rat may be seen issuing stealthily into the grass 
ride, where the food has been scattered, helping himself to all he 
can find. This is the opportunity for the brown owl to render 
important service. Gliding off the low branch of a tree in the 
direction of the pheasant coops, the bird swiftly and noiselessly 
approaches, and a rat is carried off ere he has time to realise the 
presence of an enemy. Many a keeper, seeing an owl near the 
coops, shoots or traps it as soon as possible, alleging that it 
is after the young pheasants ; quite unmindful of the fact that 
they are then under the brood hen, and that the owl, by keep- 
ing down the rats, is saving him bushels of pheasants’ food. 
How to rid the farm buildings, stacks, hedgerows, and game- 
coverts of this pest is a question of no slight importance. 
The method to be adopted must depend upon the nature of 
the place infested, for what will answer in one place will not do 
in another. Eats are extremely cunning, and some little expe- 
rience of their habits is necessary to outwit them. If they 
infest buildings, it is important first to discover where they 
chiefly lie before any traps are set.^ This may be ascertained 
by sifting fine sand in their suspected runs, and so tracking 
their footsteps. The next thing is to feed them regularly for 
some nights before attempting to catch any ; and, thirdly, to bear 
in mind that an unbaited trap is often more effective than a 
baited one if rightly placed, and that a small gin, or spring- 
trap, if pegged down so that it cannot be carried off, is much 
better than a larger and heavier one. 
If a live-trap be used, there is no better pattern than that 
* Their sleeping and nesting places are often at some distance from where 
they feed. In a house at Basingstoke, connected with a large malthouse by 
a range of buildings, rats were frequently heard passing downwards from the 
roof to the basement between the battening and the walls, but they never got 
into the house itself. The question was, why did they come at all ? At last 
a hearthstone was taken up in an office on the ground-floor, and a bushel or so 
of pieces of paper was found in which the nests had been made. By a com- 
parison of the fragments, it was found that every scrap of this paper had been 
carried over one hundred yards from a store where old papers are kept, over 
roofs, through small holes, along gutter pipes and drains, and under floors of 
the house to make a nest in a warm place far away from any food supply. — 
The Field, July 17, 1886. 
