I don’t call Rat-catching a trade only:  I maintain that it is a profession, and one that requires much learning and courage.  I have found this out when I have been under a warehouse floor, where a lot of Rats were in the traps, and I could not get one man out of 50 to come under the floor and hold the candle for me, not to mention helping me to take the live Rats out of the traps.  I just relate this because at some places where we go and where we catch perhaps 30 Rats, the first thing they say when the bill is presented is “Why, you have got 15s. worth of live Rats!” They don’t think of the damage 30 Rats can do to fancy goods, nor do they consider the evil smells that men have to tolerate under the floors or from the bad drains.

I could relate many interesting anecdotes of what I have seen and heard about Rats, but I fear its perusal might take up too much of my readers’ time.  There is, however, one thing I will mention.  I dare say you have heard of Rats running about in “swarms” in the night.  Do not believe it.  In my whole experience I have never been so fortunate as to meet a “swarm” of these, when I have had an empty cage on my back, and an order for 12 dozen live Rats at 5s. per dozen.  When trapping at farms on a moonlight night I have seen a train of Rats almost in single file going from a barn to a pit or brook to drink, and then I have simply run a long net all along the barn very quickly, sent my dog round the pit and caught all the Rats in the net when they ran back to get in the barn.  For in these places you must be as cunning as the Rats to catch them.  The quickest way for a farmer to get rid of Rats is to run a long trail of good oatmeal outside his barn doors, and shoot them on a moonlight night.  I have seen 11 killed at a shot in this way.  They will stay eating the oatmeal because they cannot carry it away.  At farms or out-houses you might poison Rats round a pit or along brook sides where they go to drink, although I don’t believe in poisoning, as one never knows where it ends—­the Rats being likely to carry the poisoned food about, and then dogs, hens, pigs, pigeons, etc., may pick it up.

There may be a few more ways of catching Rats than I have enumerated, but I think I have given the best ways in detail.  Some people think that to use

THE MONGOOSE

is very good, but I think that the mongoose is no better than a good fox terrier dog or a good cat, the only advantage in the mongoose being that all the Rats it kills it will bring back dead to its habitation, and that stops the dead Rats from smelling under the floors.  I think that the mongoose is not half so sly or sharp as a good cat, and a mongoose, moreover, has to be taught how to kill a Rat (just the same as a dog).  I am fortunate in having actually seen a mongoose and a Rat put alive in a tub together, and the mongoose would not even look at the Rat.