Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 3, 1802).djvu/505

477&#93; RAT early spring-brood, has so shrill and penetrating a voice, as to an- swer the, same purpose. With re- gard to the former bird, he appeals to his own experience, which has furnished him with satisfadtory proofs of success. Lastly, as most of the methods before suggested, are either trou- blesome and precarious, or only partial means of exterminating the objed of our research, we shall conclude with a more general and summary process of entrapping rats, so as to deliver not only our own habitations,, but those of our neighbours, from the incursions of such raischiev^oas quadrupeds. For the discovery of the following com- plete remedy, we are indebted to G, W. jMiiLLER, an ingenious apo- thecary of Wernigerode, in Ger- many : he candidly acknowledges to have derived the first hint for such purpose, many years since, from a book, written by a cele- brated economist ; in short, it will be found the most expeditious and €ife6tual mode that can be pur- sued. — A capacious cask of mode- rate height must previously be pro- cured, and put in the vicinity of • places infested with rats. During the first week, this vessel is em- ployed only to allure the rats to visit the solid top of the cask, by means of boards or planks arranged in a sloping direttioa to the floor, •which are every day strewed with oatrneal, or any other food equally grateful to tiieir palate ; and the principal part of which is exposed on the surface. After having thus been lulled into security, and ac- customed to find a regular supply for their meals, a skin of parch- ment is substituted for the wooden top of the cask, and the former is cut, for several inches, with ti'ans' RAT [477 verse Incisions through the centre, so as to yield on the smallest pres- sure. At the same lime, a few gallons of water, to the depth of live or six inches, are poured into the empty cask. In the middle of this element, a brick or stone is placed, so as to projed one or two inches above the fluid ; and that one rat may find on the former, a place, of refuge. These prepara- tory measures being taken, the boards as well as the top of the cask siiould now be furnished witii proper bait, in order to induce them to repeat their visits. No sooner does one of these marauders pian2;e through the sedion oi the ])archmenr into the vessel, than it retreats ro the brick or stone, and commences its lamentations tor re- lief. Nor are its whining notes ■uttered in vain : others socn fol- low, and share the same fate ; whea a dreadful conflict begins among them, to decide the possession of . the dry asylum. Battles follow ia rapid succession, attended with such loud and noisy shrieks, that all the rats in the neighbourhood hasten to the fatal spot, where they experience similar disasters. Thus, hundreds may be caught by a stratagem, which might be great- ly facilitated by exposing a living rat taken in a trap, or purchased from a professional rat-catcher. — Nay, if it be true, that a whole inhabitable island on the western eoast of Scotland be infested with these destructive vermin, we are of opinion, that they could thus be speedily exterminated ; and that the carcas.ses of such animals as have hitherto been considered as useless, might be advantageously employed for the purposes of ma- nuring the barren soil of those iu- hospitable regions. RAT-