preventing their escape you will catch and kill a great many by this
means.

It should be stated here that as Rats are very cunning, it takes a lot of
study, dodging, and experience to be able to rid them entirely. When you
are feeding Rats anywhere, never feed them with other than soft stuff,
which you can squeeze through your fingers, for if you feed them with
anything lumpy, they will carry pieces into their holes and eat at their
leisure.



FERRETING.


Ferreting is a very good plan for destroying Rats in cottage houses,
stables, hotels, etc., as it can be done in the day, but in buildings,
say five or six storeys high you cannot ferret very well as you cannot
tell where to set your nets. The only way to ferret a large building is
to ferret one floor at once, and always start at the top storey first.
The majority of floors are laths and plaster. This is what the Rat
likes, especially the Brown Rat, and there are more nests found in these
places than anywhere else. To ferret thoroughly in such places you will
require to have a board up at each end of the floor: the two end boards
that run crossways with the joist; then you must have a man to put the
ferret in at one end, and ferret one joist at a time; have a net set at
the other end. The best way at the catching end is to have a long sheet
net about a yard wide, and the full length of the boards that are up, for
sometimes under the boards the Rats can get out of one joist into
another, and if you use the long net you can catch them whichever joist