ROUGH ON RATS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 344, 11 March 1911, Page 7

ROUGH ON RATS.

Lcim; a earning and suspicious little ; oast the rat, if he is to be :au-:ht. at all, must be " caught by guile." When the ordinary methods of ia' run- have failed—and they often .In fail—it is necessary to try "xti-ii.-irdinary methods, and here is i lie whah has actually been tried ami has succeeded. in a store-room was a barrel of mai;c dour of which the rats were ennnr.o'isly fond, and their habit was to climb up to a shelf, run riloig it, leap down on the floor and gorge themselves. It. occurred to the owner of the flour that he might mike the rats' fondness for it work their destruction. He took another barrel, and taking out the head of it, he refixed it in its place by mean; of a wire fastening on each side, so that if anything pressed upon either half of the lid it spun round upon its wire pivots and immediately returned to its resting place, to all appearances the innocent lid of a cask.

The cask full of meal was taken away, and this trap-cask put in its place, the head tixsd nrmly so that it would not spin round, and covered .very thickly with Indian meal. The rats came, leaped down as usual,, feasted, and went away. This was kept up for a couple of nights, fresh flour being placed on the head, and duly eaten. Then came the Nemesis. The next night that barrel was hilf-filled with water, the head glued and thickly sprinkled with flour, and then left loose, swinging so easily that on the first rat leaping down there was a slip and a scramble, followed by a hollow splash but the lid resumed its position, covering the drowning enemy, and placing itself ready to entrap the next. For months that trick succeeded well, four or five rats heing taken in a night, and the place at last well cleared.

Set a trap, however cunningly, and with whatever concealment you please, but the rats will not be caught ; but hide that trap somewhere at the back of a shelf, half covered with a board ; place it by the wainscot of a room, and lay a slate slantingly over it ; make a loop of the mat and place it beneath: a tube of a roll or oilcloth—anything, in short, that suggests a narrow hiding-place, through which a rat can run, and the chances are that his secretive and inquisitive nature will lead him through them ; and if there be a trap set, he will be caught. No better plan could be adopted than to place food of some kind shut up closely in a basket or hamper near the rat-runs, and let them work their way in. The next night repair the hamper to keep the rat out, but this time place the trap within. Many hours will not elarse before your wicker repairs will have been destroyed, and the rat has received his reward. A farmer nearly cleared his place of rats by the following novel method, which he discovered by accident. He made a watery mixture of meal for the pigs one evening and left it in the tub. The next morning he was surprised by finding two rats drowned. The next night, however, he encouraged them by putting out solid meal alone, and the next night again, he tried the fluid, meal. All the rats which had been attracted by the solid meal came again and were duly caught. Perhaps the farmer readers of this paper will try the method and see how it works. A racon merchant in Ireland, who was overrun with rats, adopted a very remarkable method o ridding himself of the pest. He went to the trouble of building a sort of stone quadrangle, eleven feet long, sevei feet wide, a nd with a wall three feet high, with flagstones laid flat upon the top and projecting a little over the inside of the wall. The happy thought in this elaborate rat trap was the fact that all round the wall inside, at the base, were scores of holes, like pigeon holes, which, except in one case in a score did not. go quite' through the wall. These few holes going completely through were the only means of retting in or out of the quadrangle, as far as the rats were concerned. r Jh< interior was then littered with boards, lumber, straw, in fact with all kinds of harbourage for rats and the whole place was rendered pitch <h:rk l.y being covered with a movable wooden roof. No food was put inside. That was a concession tc ihi suspicious nature of the rat. He would have suspected a trap probably and stayed outside. So a plentiful supply of food, such as bones an 1 useless offal, together with plenty '■ of water was left carelessly strewn a'.out outside the quadrangle. The ejected happened, for the vermin quickly adopted the quadrangle, tc which the only means of access were dark secretive holes, as an ideal hiding place (luring the day. Then when all was ripe for the rat hunt the roof was removed, the few passages which went right through the wall were stopped up from the outside and the hoards and other lumber in hie were removed. Anyone who has seen the last stooks of an old corn-stack removed, and the scurry of rats which, ensues as their last hiding place disappears will be able to form Suine slight, mental picture of the scene inside the quadrangle as the timber and other rublush under which the vermin had learned to seek shelter was removed. The frightened animals ran up the walls, but, striking against the projecting hags, fell back again. Then ; they ran into the small holes below, hut these, being only large enough to admit their bodies, whilst their tails remained sticking out, the men who had gone iu over the wall had nothing to do hut drag them out i by the fail and ding them to a troop of anxious does outside the fortress : or into a barrel of water, where ! they were soon destroyed. As there

were not. holes enough in the wall inside the noise and uproar soon frightened another division of rats into the vacated openings, and these being treated in the same way. the whole garrison was quickly destroyed. -\s many as seven or eight hundred have been killed at one clearing. At the same place, where rat-catch-ing w.-s a hue art, the proprietor tried the effect of putting a pet fox in the lofts where the rats were very numerous. Reynard proved sc effecti" e a rat catcher that three or four more were then procured and they killed hundreds. Perhaps the new Lou lon dock authorities will take the hint and procure a few score foxes to enable them to cope with the millions if rats which infest the docks at the Thames side. It is well known that the rat is a very good swimmer. Possibly the canal which surrounds the Zoo in Regent's Park may keep off certain types of marauders, but it is not sufficient to keep the rats out. Over it millions of rats swim nightly and search the cages and houses for food of any kind that may have been left by the animals. The rats are too crafty to remain in the Gardens all d a y, so they cross over at night and before daybreak return to their usual haunts.— "Weekly Telegraph."