Studies in the Art of Rat-catching. Barkley Henry C.
and pick up which one you require. Don't hesitate a moment. Don't dangle your hand over their heads till you can make a dash and catch one. The ferrets will only think your hand is their supper coming and will grab it, with no ill intent; but if you put it down steadily and slowly, they will soon learn you only do so to take them out, and your hand will become as welcome to them as flowers in spring.
True, at first, with strange ferrets you may be bitten; but it is not a very serious thing if you are, as ferrets' bites are never venomous, as the bites of rats often are. I have in my time been bitten by ferrets many dozens of times and have never suffered any ill effects. There, I think that is enough for your first lesson, so I will send it off at once and get it printed for you.
CHAPTER II
The first chapter of this lesson-book has gone to the printer, so I don't quite know what I said in it, but I think we had finished the home-life of the ferret and were just taking it out of its box. Different professors have different opinions as to what is next to be done with it. Many (and they are good men too) think you should put it into a box about eighteen inches long, ten inches high, and ten wide; the box to be divided into two compartments, with a lid to each, and with leather loops to these lids through which to thrust a pointed spade so as to carry it on your shoulder. I have tried this plan, but I have never quite liked it. I have found that after a heavy day's work the box was apt to get heavy and feel as if it were a grandfather's clock hanging on your back. Then the ratting spade was engaged instead of being free to mump a rat on the head in a hurry, or point out a likely hole to the dogs. When a ferret was wanted, all the others would dash out and have to be hunted about to be re-caught. Now and then the lids came open and let all out; and now and then I let the box slip off the spade and fall to the ground, and then I felt sorry for the ferrets inside it! No, I have always carried my ferrets in a good strong canvas bag, with a little clean straw at the bottom, and a leather strap and buckle stitched on to it with which to close it. Don't tie the bag with a piece of string – it is sure to get lost; and don't have a stiff buckle on your strap that takes ten minutes to undo. Remember the life of a rat may depend upon your getting your ferret out quickly. Never throw the bag of ferrets down; lay them down gently. Don't leave the bag on the ground in a broiling sun with some of the ferrets in it while you are using the others, or in a cold draughty place on a cold day; find a snug corner for them, if you can, and cover them up with a little straw or grass to keep them warm.
If, when carrying your ferrets, they chatter in the bag, let them; it is only singing, not fighting. I have never known a ferret hurt another in a bag. Always bag your ferret as soon as you have done with it; don't drag it about in your hand for half an hour, and don't put it in your pocket, as it will make your coat smell.
When I have done work and turned towards home, I have made it a rule always to put a dead rat into the bag, as I think it amuses the ferrets and breaks the monotony of a long journey; just as when I run down home I like taking a snack at Swindon Station, just to divert my mind from the racketing of the train and the thought of the hard seat. When you get home, give the ferrets a rat for every two of them, if you can afford it, for then they need only eat the best joints. If you have not many dead rats and want to save some for the morrow, one rat for three ferrets is enough for twenty-four hours; but don't forget to give them water or milk.
I think I have said enough as to the management of ferrets, and will go on to speak of the necessary tools. The chief thing is a good ratting spade. What the musket is to the soldier, the spade is to the rat-catcher. You may get on without it, but you won't do much killing. I have tried many shapes, but the one I like best is on the pattern of the above drawing. It should not be too heavy, but yet strong; and, therefore, the handle should be made of a good piece of ash, and the other parts of the best tempered steel, and the edge should be sharp enough to cut quickly through a thick root. The spike should be sharp, so as easily to enter the ground and feel for a lost hole. This will constantly save a long dig and much time; besides, one can often bolt a rat by a few well-directed prods in a soft bank – not that I approve of this, as there may be more than one rat in the hole, and by prodding out one you are contented to leave others behind. No, I think the ferret should go down every hole challenged by the dogs, as then you are pretty sure of making a clean job of it.
Besides the spade, I have always kept a few trap boxes. These are to catch a ferret should one lay up and have to be left behind. I bait them with a piece of rat and place them at the mouth of the hole, and it is rare I don't find the ferret in it in the morning. I also take one of these traps with me if I am going where rats are very numerous; then, if a ferret stops too long in a hole, I stick the mouth of the trap over the hole and pack it round with earth and stop up all the bolt holes, and then go on working with the other ferrets. When the sluggard is at last tired of the hole, it walks into the trap, shoving up the wire swing door, which falls down behind it, and there it has to stop till you fetch it.
If I am going to ferret wheat stacks where rats have worked strong, I take with me half a dozen pieces of thin board about a foot long. I do so for this reason. The first thing rats do when they take possession of a stack is to make a good path, or run, all round it just under the eaves; and when disturbed by ferrets, they get into this run and keep running away round and round the stack without coming to the ground. Therefore, before putting in the ferrets, I take a ladder, and going round the eaves of the stack I stick the boards in so as to cut off these runs, and when a rat goes off for a gallop he comes to "no thoroughfare," and feeling sure the ferret is after him, he in desperation comes to the ground, and then the dogs can have a chance. I once killed twenty-eight rats out of a big stack in twenty minutes after the ferrets were put in, all thanks to these stop-boards; and though I ran the ferrets through and through the stack afterwards, I did not start another, and so I believe I had got the lot.
I think I have enumerated all the tools required for rat-catching. I need not mention a knife and a piece of string, as all honest men have them in their pocket always, even on Sundays. Some rat-catchers take with them thick leather gloves to save their getting bitten by a rat or a ferret; but I despise such effeminate ways, and I consider he does not know his profession if he cannot catch either ferret or rat with his naked hands.
I must now turn to the subject of dogs – one far more important than either ferrets or tools, and one so large that if I went on writing and writing to the end of my days I should not get to the end of it, and so shall only make a few notes upon it as a slight guide to the student, leaving him to follow it up and work it out for himself; but in so doing I beg to say that his future success as a rat-catcher will depend on his mastering the subject.
But, before proceeding further, I am anxious to say a few words in parenthesis for the benefit of the Head Masters of our schools. Admirable as their academies are for turning out Greek and Latin scholars, I cannot help thinking a proper provision is seldom made in their establishments for acquiring a real working knowledge of the profession of a rat-catcher; and I wish to suggest that it would be as well to insist on all those students who wish to take up this subject keeping at school at least one good dog and a ferret, and that two afternoons a week should be set apart entirely for field practice, and that the cost of this should be jotted down at the end of each term in the little school account that is sent home to the students' parents. I know most high-spirited boys will object to this and call it a fresh tyranny, and ever after hate me for proposing it; but I do it under a deep sense of duty, being convinced that it is far better they should perfectly master the rudimentary knowledge of such an honest profession as that of rat-catcher, than that they should drift on through their school life with no definite future marked out, finally to become perhaps such scourges of society as M.P.s who make speeches when Parliament is not sitting. Judging from the columns of the newspapers, there must be many thousands who come to this most deplorable end; and if I can only turn one from such a vicious course, I shall feel I have benefitted mankind even more than by killing rats and other vermin.
Now I must return to the subject of dogs, and in doing so I will first begin on their masters, for to make a good dog, a good master is also absolutely necessary. Anybody that has thought about it knows that as is the master, so is the dog. A quiet man has a quiet dog, a quarrelsome man a quarrelsome dog, a bright quick man a bright quick dog, and a loafing idle ruffian a slinking slothful cur.
First of all, then, the dog's master must understand dog talk; for they do talk,