Muskrats are the greatest nuisance in ornamental grounds where there are large water features. They have an unfortunate fondness for lily bulbs. The boy who can outwit them will win favour with the gardener and the garden's owner, with the muskrat skins thrown in.
TRAPPING GOPHERS
Our old dog Nimp was convinced that the way to get a gopher was to dig him out. Doctor Hornaday tells an amusing story about his having that same conviction when a boy. Many a night Nimp would come home from the pasture, panting, his coat all rough with the reddish soil that we knew had come out of a gopher hole. Weary, yes, but discouraged, never. The old dog would go back to his job morning after morning. Sometimes we would try to help by carrying buckets full of water and "drowning him out." Never did Nimp scent a gopher near the cattle well but once, and then the boys drowned him out with a vengeance. The hunted little creature leaped out of a hole so unexpectedly near where the boys sat that one turned a complete somersault and landed in the last pailful of water. Nimp was quicker than his masters and soon laid the bedraggled little miner at our feet. We felt pretty small.
Very little can be said in defence of the gopher. He is an undeniable nuisance and helps to bring the farmer's crop down to a lower figure than it ought to be. Traps and poisoned vegetables are swifter methods of dealing with the case than digging, for the gopher is himself past master in the art of digging.
TRAPPING THE WEASEL
One of the natural enemies of the pocket gopher is the weasel. If only we could set the weasel on the gopher and then had something like a mongoose to keep down the weasels! I never yet heard a good word for the weasel. He seems to be the embodiment of all that is mean and sly and hateful. It is undeniable that he does not obey the laws of the woods, that he kills for the mere joy of killing, and that is a high crime. Men with weasel-like ways get to have the same blood-thirsty look. The weasel is a savage, hunting every wild creature in the woods, rabbits, mice, chipmunks, moles, rats, grouse, chickens, and ducks, and even insects. He robs the nests of birds, eats eggs and young, and even the old birds are not safe from him.
I just read in a book that "weasels are so small that their fur has little value, but the time will come when it will be eagerly sought and used." Well, that time has come, but, who ever went to a shop and asked for a weasel tippet? But ask for ermine and they will show any quantity of it. The price! Well, wouldn't the weasel be surprised to find himself so popular. It all comes about because of that interesting habit of his, changing colour in the winter. The weasel is a sort of peculiar shade of brown as you can testify if you have caught one; the ermine is pure white all but the tippest tip of the tail which is dead black; yet they are one and the same. Weasel in summer and ermine in winter.
The weasel, the mink, and the marten are all enemies of the native wild game, and efforts to exterminate them are always applauded by sportsmen. Much is yet to be learned of their habits. Trappers have succeeded in keeping the mink and marten in check, but the weasel goes his murderous way, feared and hated by everybody.
TRAPPING RATS
There is no pest around the farm yard or barn yard anywhere so hard to cope with when once they get a foothold, as rats. Finding them numerous in the barn once, we put chicken feed in the uncemented cellar of the house. Before the end of the first winter of that arrangement we were praying for a visit from the Pied Piper. The rats took possession. They broke dishes, seemingly for the fun of it; they gnawed the softened woodwork around the kitchen sink and held high carnival at midnight throughout the spaces between the walls; they all but bit the babies in their cradles and defied all our efforts to outwit them. Traps, cats, poison, we tried everything, but they outstayed us. If ever we get into a like case again I shall be tempted to try ferrets or cyanide.