to take their departure. 5.  If a live rat be caught, and a small bell be fastened around his neck, and allowed to escape, all of his brother rats as well as himself will very soon go to some other neighbor’s house. 6.  Take a pan, about twelve inches deep, and half fill it with water; then sprinkle some bran on the water and set the pan in a place where the rats most frequent.  In the morning you will find several rats in the pan. 7.  Flour, three parts; sugar, one-half part; sulphur, two parts, and phosphorus, two parts.  Smear on meat, and place near where the rats are most troublesome. 8.  Squills are an excellent poison for rats.  The powder should be mixed with some fatty substance, and spread upon slices of bread.  The pulp of onions is also very good.  Rats are very fond of either. 9.  Take two ounces of carbonate of barytes, and mix with one pound of suet or tallow, place a portion of this within their holes and about their haunts.  It is greedily eaten, produces great thirst, and death ensues after drinking.  This is a very effectual poison, because it is both tasteless and odorless. 10.  Take one ounce of finely powdered arsenic, one ounce of lard; mix these into a paste with meal, put it about the haunts of rats.  They will eat of it greedily. 11.  Make a paste of one ounce of flour, one-half gill of water, one drachm of phosphorus, and one ounce of flour.  Or, one ounce of flour, two ounces of powdered cheese crumbs, and one-half drachm of phosphorus; add to each of these mixtures a few drops of the oil of rhodium, and spread this on thin pieces of bread like butter; the rats will eat of this greedily, and it is a sure poison. 12.  Mix some ground plaster of paris with some sugar and indian meal.  Set it about on plates, and leave beside each plate a saucer of water.  When the rats have eaten the mixture they will drink the water and die.  To attract them toward it, you may sprinkle on the edges of the plates a little of the oil of rhodium.  Another method of getting rid of rats is, to strew pounded potash on their holes.  The potash gets into their coats and irritates the skin, and the rats desert the place. 13.  The dutch method:  this is said to be used successfully in holland; we have, however, never tried it.  A number of rats are left together to themselves in a very large trap or cage, with no food whatever; their craving hunger will, at last, cause them to fight and the weakest will be eaten by the others; after a short time the fight is renewed, and the next weakest is the victim, and so it goes on till one strong rat is left.  When this one has eaten the last remains of any of the others, it is set loose; the animal has now acquired such a taste for rat-flesh that he is the terror of ratdom, going round seeking what rat he may devour.  In an incredibly short time the premises are abandoned by all other rats, which will not come back before the cannibal rat has left or has died. 14.  Catch a rat and smear him over with a mixture of phosphorus and lard, and then let him loose.  The house will soon be emptied of these pests.