Respecting the conveyance of live Rats, the Rat-catcher should always be particular to have good strong cages and bags, because if he had a number of Rats in an unserviceable bag which happened to break open at a railway station or in the street, I think he could be summoned for the damage the escaped Rats might do.  Still, I have not in my time had or heard of a case of this sort.

Speaking of bags, a good many people seem to think that if a man puts his hand into a bagful of Rats they will bite him, but I can assure you that a child could do the same thing and not be bitten.  Should there be only two or three in the bag, then they will bite, but not in the event of there being a good number.  The same rule applies to Rats stored in a cage, where there is open daylight—­if there be 40 or 50 Rats together, it is then the habit of the Rats for all to cling together, and they will let you handle them anyway if only you will have sufficient courage.

It is very good sport for gentlemen who want a good day’s outing to go to farms when threshing is on, and also to go hunting and ferreting round the corn and wheat fields, and I think many sporting gentlemen who have not seen such sport would indulge in it freely after they had once witnessed it.  I think it is much better and healthier sport than rabbit-shooting, especially in the summer when the farmers are cutting their corn and wheat.

When catching Rats as a regular pursuit, one is surprised at the queer places in which he finds them.  I recollect ferreting seven full-sized Rats from under the floor of a built dog kennel not above four yards square, where a large mastiff and a terrier dog slept every night, only a 3/4-inch board dividing them from the Rats, and the Rats having eaten holes through the boards in the kennel!  I have also found at an out-house an old bitch Rat and nine young ones in an old tin trunk without a lid.  I have also caught Rats and taken young ones out of the nest from under railway sleepers where trains have been running and shunting operations carried on every day.  And I have even taken old and young ones in their nest from a pile of Cheshire cheese, at a wholesale cheese and bacon factor’s!

And mentioning cheese in this connection reminds me that once I discovered that Rats had scratched and eaten a hole direct through the bottom lot of cheese in a pile which had only been there three weeks.

A word or two about what a Rat will do with a ferret.  I have often seen a Rat run a ferret out of the hole, and then wait with its head out of the hole until the ferret has come to it again.  I remember once ferreting at a hencote, and put the ferret behind the hen nest, whereupon the Rat attacked the ferret, which then jumped back and died in five minutes, the Rats having given only one bite behind the ferret’s ear!  Of course this is a very rare occurrence.  True, I have had many ferrets killed by Rats in my time, but it has always occurred through the poisonous bite first swelling and then “taking bad ways,” the ferret dying in probably a week or so.