796 
MOUE OF DESTROYING MICE. 
ARTICLE XVI. 
MODE OF DESTROYING RATS AND MICE. 
BY MR. JOHN HOWDEN. 
A Correspondent signed " G. N." wishes to know the best 
method of destroying the short-tailed field mouse, I would recom- 
mend the following simple trap. Take a large flower pot invert it 
on a board or slate, and sink it in the gi-ound nearly level with the 
surface, opposite the hole in the bottom of the pot, and about two 
inches from the surface or entrance, may be suspended on a crooked 
piece of wire, a smooth wooden roller, like the castor of a bed-post, 
this the mouse will leap upon, and from thence be precipitated to the 
bottom, from whence it can never escape ; and hundreds may be 
caught in the same trap without any trouble of re-setting. (Fig. 127) 
The surface may be sprinkled with chaff or short straw, and a mix- 
ture of grass and clover seeds about the hole. The roller may be 
besmeared with lard and dusted over with flower or oatmeal. In wet 
weather a sough tile may be set over the hole to keep it dry. I 
have invented another very simple mouse or rat trap, the diflerence 
is only in the size. An old packing box four inches deep for mice, 
and six inches deep for rats, is divided into lodging rooms four or 
six inches square. 
128 
Each lodging-room has two augur holes into it, the size of a 
mouse or rat, whichever the trap is intended iov, us the rat ])articularly. 
