Hundreds on hundreds of tales relating to its cunning or intelligence might be cited until you were heartily tired of reading, much less I of writing. How rats will bite holes in leaden pipes, attack the face of a sleeping infant—an instance of which I might relate from actual knowledge—how they devour each other, leaving only the skin turned inside out as neatly as you could turn a stocking, and last, but far from least, how they have been trained to perform a drama in pantomime and various other tricks quite too numerous to refer to here. The rat is practically omnivorous, and so gets his living where more select appetites and digestions would starve. “Hit him ’ard, he ain’t a’ got no friends,” as was said of the pauper boy in “Oliver Twist.” Every creature’s hand seems turned against him, and we, agreeably to this bent of nature, will now proceed to compass his destruction by means of trapping.
Fig. 8.
Unquestionably the best trap is the common iron gin. Everybody knows what that is like, with its centre plate and formidable rows of teeth on either side the jaws. I shall therefore spare you a drawing and description of it, and content myself with simply advising that the teeth be of the shape shown at [Fig. 8]—that is, square points fitting when closed in half circles. Now this form of tooth does not cut through the limb of the captured animal so readily as the saw-shaped does, and is preferable on that account. Rats are very prone to gnaw through a fractured limb and free themselves—they will not do this nearly so readily, however, if the teeth be of the shape indicated. This is also the best shape for the capture of other vermin, as we shall see as these chapters proceed.
Fig. 9.
In all cases a chain about eighteen inches is attached by means of an S hook in the gin. A swivel should be placed about the middle, and a ring of about an inch and a quarter should terminate it. A good stout stake, about eighteen inches long, is also necessary, and ash is particularly recommendable if it can be procured. If it be trimmed when cut, like [Fig. 9], so that a short piece of branch keeps the ring from slipping off, so much the better. Another tool which is ever useful when gins are being set (and that will be pretty frequent with the vermin I shall speak about) is a hammer shaped something like [Fig. 10]. You will see that it has a broad, hatchet-like form to it instead of the claws of an ordinary hammer, and this is for cutting into the earth, separating roots, etc. In twenty ways it comes in useful, so I advise my readers to get one made after this pattern.
Fig. 10.
Be careful in setting your trap to keep your fingers well away from the teeth, and to do this observe the following method. Place your right foot upon the spring firmly, and as the jaws fall back, quickly lift the catch over with your right hand; then, without relaxing pressure, raise the plate of the trap from underneath until it allows of the catch to meet the nick in the plate. Set them lightly or hard, according to the animal to be trapped. Experience will soon enable you to judge how this should be for a rat. A fine sieve is generally used by trappers to sift dirt over the trap when set, but you can dispense with this if you wear gloves. In rat-trapping, by the by, always wear thick gloves; rats can smell you infallibly.