A PLAGUE OF RATS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 98, 12 April 1876, Page 4

A PLAGUE OF RATS.

The rat is beginning to rival the locust and grasshopper as a cause of famine. British Burtnah is being overrun with rate, which have eaten everything eatable for many hundreds of miles, and have rendered thousands of people destitute. But we need not go so far as British Burmah for them. A correspondent, writing to an agricultural contemporary says:— '"Ratß are to be found in thousands on the Cumbrae, and they annoy the farmers greatly. Some farmers give their servants a penny for every rat they kill on their farms, and as much as £5 has thus been added to one servant's fee for a half-year. A schoolboy staying at one of the farms has trapped 700 since Martinmas. The tails are kept and produced on pay-day, when the farmer is glad to give a penny for each, as it is calculated that a rat will destroy a pennyworth of grain every night. Some stacks are so eaten that they look as if they are going to fall." A plague of rats is a thing which has a n&tural tendency to cure itself, but it is beat to'help the cure. Your rat, unless spoilefcbby too much luxury, is not an ea9y creature to delude into a trap. He is too suspicious of the ostentatious benevolence of a bait. Still he may be caught, and one of the traps — one which would pay i_when rats are at a penny a tail — is made thus : — You get a tub and stand it on its own bottom, as a tub ought to stand. Then you put into it a brick and a few inches of water. Over the top you stretch, a parchment, in the middle of which you make two crosscuts. On it you sprinkle some grain. Your rat comes and walks to the grain, but the parchment gives way and he slides into the tub. Then he climbs! on to the brick and squeaks. His squeaks bring his neighbors and relatives, who climb the tub and fall in as he did. Then they fight for the brick, and in the morning all are dead except one or two. You take away the brick, and these also find a watery grave. Then you go to the farmers with their: tails, and retire upon a competency. , Thus may; our readers make a fortune easily. — Pictorial World.