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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42305 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 42305-h.htm or 42305-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42305/42305-h/42305-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42305/42305-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/allaboutferretsr01isaa
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
+
+
+
+
+
+ALL ABOUT FERRETS AND RATS
+
+A Complete History of Ferrets, Rats, and Rat Extermination
+from Personal Experiences and Study.
+Also
+A Practical Hand-Book on the Ferret.
+
+by
+
+"SURE POP."
+(ADOLPH ISAACSEN.)
+
+Second Edition.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS.
+
+New York:
+Adolph Isaacsen, Publisher,
+No. 92 Fulton Street.
+
+Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1890,
+By Adolph Isaacsen,
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                                                 PAGE.
+
+ INTRODUCTORY                                                        5
+
+
+ THE FERRET.
+
+      I. What a Ferret Is                                            7
+
+     II. Character and Appearance                                    9
+
+    III. Rat Hunting                                                11
+
+     IV. Food                                                       14
+
+      V. Ferret Houses                                              15
+
+     VI. Diseases                                                   16
+
+    VII. Hardiness                                                  17
+
+   VIII. Breeding and Training                                      19
+
+     IX. Strength and Bite                                          20
+
+      X. Handling                                                   21
+
+     XI. With Cats and Dogs                                         21
+
+    XII. Advantages as a Rat Exterminator                           22
+
+   XIII. Miscellaneous                                              23
+
+
+ THE RAT.
+
+      I. The Rat Family and its Varieties                           27
+
+     II. Rat History                                                27
+
+    III. The King's Own Rat-Catcher                                 29
+
+     IV. Rat Society, Cannibalism, and Friendship                   30
+
+      V. Multiplying Powers                                         33
+
+     VI. Unabridged Bill of Fare                                    34
+
+    VII. Ferocity                                                   35
+
+   VIII. Rats in Breweries, Slaughter Houses, Markets,
+           Stables, and Barn-yards                                  36
+
+     IX. Rats as Wine Drinkers                                      38
+
+      X. Destructiveness                                            39
+
+     XI. Rats as Food                                               40
+
+    XII. Rat Nests                                                  43
+
+   XIII. The Rat's Musical Talents and Eyesight                     45
+
+    XVI. Rats as Moralists                                          46
+
+     XV. Rats in the Good Old Days, and the Modern Rat
+           Superstitions                                            47
+
+    XVI. Review of the Rat, and Conclusion                          49
+
+
+ RAT EXTERMINATION.
+
+      I. Traps                                                      51
+
+     II. Poisons                                                    54
+
+    III. Dogs, Cats, and Ferrets                                    56
+
+     IV. Human Rat Catchers                                         56
+
+
+ THE ORIGIN OF THE FERRET, with hints to Darwin.                    57
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+In the following pages we have given a complete review of the
+ever-important rat exterminating subject, from a practical man's point
+of view. The essay on the Ferret has been exhaustively treated, is a
+special feature of the work, and will be found of great value to the
+rat-ridden part of the community, as well as to the fancier and
+naturalist. "The Rat" has been handled from a universal point of view,
+and the book has been prepared from the writer's practical notes during
+his thirty years' study of Rats and Rat Extermination.
+
+
+
+
+THE FERRET.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+I.--WHAT A FERRET IS.
+
+Our dictionaries say that "ferret" as a verb active means to search out
+carefully. This is certainly an important function of the animal, but,
+as it belongs to the Musteline or flesh-eating weasel family, it has
+also inherited these animals' boldness and savageness, though tempered
+and exercised in a very useful direction, i. e., of killing off the
+most bothersome and numerous of our vermin for us. It is rather a
+well-known family, the one to which the ferret belongs, including such
+animals as the sable, which furnishes the highly-prized fur, the skunk,
+with its not as greatly valued perfume, the ermine, the color of which
+is likened to the driven snow and whose dress forms the badge of
+royalty, the weasel, from which artists obtain their finest brushes, the
+marten, the badger, and the otter. The shape of these animals, the
+characteristics being strongly marked in the ferret, is long, slender,
+and serpentine (snake-like and winding), their teeth are very sharp, the
+muzzle and legs short. Their average food is rats, rabbits, and birds.
+Members of this class are found in all climates and parts of the earth.
+
+It is necessary to state, primarily, that there is no such thing as a
+wild ferret; it is domesticated in the same degree as a cat or a dog.
+The wild animal from which the ferret is bred is the weasel, just as the
+dog is originally of wolf extraction, and the cat of the same class as
+the tiger or lion. The ferret is also interbred with the different
+species of the musteline tribe, such as the mink, marten, polecat, and
+fitch. These are nevertheless all weasels in the same way that terriers,
+black and tans, Newfoundlands, and poodles all belong to the family of
+dogs. The ferret's origin has been traced by some to Spain, by others
+again to the northwestern part of Africa, and by still different writers
+as far away from us as Egypt, but it was first used authentically for
+ratting and rabbiting in Great Britain, where it is most highly prized,
+its merits understood, and where almost every one is as familiar with it
+as he is with the nature of his house cat. The public here in America is
+yet but indifferently acquainted with the ferret. At an exhibition of
+ferrets made by the writer at Madison Square Garden there was about one
+out of every fifteen persons that knew the name of the animal at all,
+and the ferrets were alternately designated as skunks, weasels,
+guinea-pigs, raccoons, monkeys, woodchucks, kittens, puppies, squirrels,
+rabbits, chipmunks, rats (an animal for which they are commonly
+mistaken), hares, martens, otters, small kangaroos, muskrats, beavers,
+seals, and, ridiculous as it may seem, small bears. The American race of
+ferrets has been bred to a high degree of intelligence, as the proper
+medium of wildness in the hunt and docility to its keeper has been
+obtained principally through the efforts of the present writer. This,
+however, has only been brought about after a great deal of close study
+and experiment in cross breeding, until now the American animal is
+greatly preferable to its more sluggish and vicious English brother.
+
+
+II.--CHARACTER AND APPEARANCE.
+
+Every individual ferret has a character and distinct look of its own,
+although there are some ugly, scarred, and bony specimens with game legs
+and glass eyes, still the ferret, when in good condition, is a pretty
+little animal, with soft fur and kittenish ways, and can be handled and
+fondled after you have become mutually acquainted, the same as a cat. It
+can never be made as trustworthy as a dog, because it does not possess
+as much intelligence. The general colors are white, yellow, and a
+mixture of black, brown, gray, and tan, varied with gray and white
+patches over and under the neck and body. _The tint runs according to
+the predominance of either mink, marten, fitch, or polecat blood._ The
+ferret is essentially a _useful_ animal, and is not valued for its good
+looks, but the purely colored, pink-eyed, white ferret, with its plump
+form and beautiful, glossy coat of a creamy shade, does certainly not
+present an ungainly appearance. The dark ones are a sprightly company,
+too, with their friendly, sparkling black eyes and social nature. There
+is no standard size--there are large and small breeds, the age having
+nothing to do with its inches. Some ferrets never get to be bigger than
+a size beyond a dock rat, while I have had others as large as a full
+grown cat. There are ferrets more valuable as hunters than others on
+account of their wiry forms, their age, experience, and intelligence. I
+have small, homely ferrets, which persons not understanding ferret
+peculiarities would pick out as the most miserable and stupid of a lot,
+but which in reality are choice hunting stock. There is no preference
+for small or large ferrets, as they are both good for different
+purposes. Ferrets are cleanly animals both in appearance and in their
+habits. Their jumping and climbing powers are limited. There is a
+curious thing about the ferret that reminds us of its kinsmanship with
+the gentle-tempered skunk, for _when it is teased or aggravated_
+(showing this also by bristling up the hair of its tail) it emits a
+pungent odor from a gland it has underneath the tail. This only happens
+in extreme cases, otherwise it is peaceful enough except toward its
+natural prey. _Different lots of ferrets, strangers to each other, will
+not agree, and should not be put together, as there is a risk of a
+deadly battle._ It is a pleasant enough thing to watch a number of
+healthy ferrets at their antics. On the writer's breeding grounds, where
+the pens are always kept neatly painted and the sawdust carefully
+leveled on the floor, making it look like a lawn in yellow, they
+generally huddle up in a snug heap, presenting a confused jumble of
+heads, tails, blinking eyes, and indistinguishable masses of fur. This
+is during the daytime, after they have been fed. Toward dusk, or when
+they are hungry again, they disentangle themselves from the bunch, one
+by one, and after they have properly yawned and stretched themselves
+they are very lively. They frisk and gambol about like lambs in a
+pasture, without the odd, long-legged appearance of the lamb, but they
+make up for this by humping up their backs like small dromedaries. They
+get to tumbling over one another in a comic, clown-like way, they run,
+galop, trot, and hop, and sit erect on their haunches. This latter
+action they perform in expectation of a mouse, a special delicacy with
+them, though but a mouthful, from the keepers leaning over the pens
+above. Upon the whole they seem to be enjoying life immensely,
+presenting quite a study of animal contentment and happiness.
+
+
+III.--RAT HUNTING.
+
+When the word rat is mentioned in connection with the ferret, our
+pacific scene is changed to one of war and bloodshed. The savage
+instincts of the animal are then aroused, and the rat itself knows, when
+it has caught the ferret's scent, that its time has come. There are no
+two animals more deadly enemies than these, the ferret being constructed
+in such a way that it is best adapted to hunt the rat in the rat's own
+haunts. Wherever a rat can go a ferret can go, because the latter's body
+is as flexible as rubber, and it can squeeze itself up, draw itself
+out, and flatten its limbs into a likeness of a New England buckwheat
+cake, as if there wasn't a bone in its body. The weasels, and nearly all
+wild animals of this division, after killing the prey suck the blood,
+eat the brain, leave the rest of the body untouched, and then proceed to
+annihilate the next victim, repeating the operation. Here is where the
+difference between the ferret and the other animals of its tribe comes
+in, for it does not content itself with brain food and such ethereal
+substances, but devours the whole carcass with a fine relish, not even
+leaving the tail or the skin. It bolts the bones and everything else
+thereto appertaining. It is rather an appalling experience for the first
+time to hear the hungry ferret's teeth go crunch, crunch, as they meet
+in the neck of some fat rodent. This sound bears a resemblance to a
+cowboy chewing radishes. A very hungry ferret would commence to devour
+the rat before it had thoroughly made its exit into the sweet
+subsequently. In using ferrets to clear a house of rats, they should be
+allowed to nose through the building during the night with the same
+freedom accorded a domestic animal. During the day they are kept in the
+pen. The reason a ferret should be hunted with in the night is that it
+sees better then, and that it is instinctively better fitted for
+hunting. The rats also become more venturesome at this time. When the
+ferrets are to be hunted with, feed them slightly, as feeding blunts
+their hunting capabilities and makes them worthless. After a good feed a
+ferret will sleep harder than any other domestic animal. Sometimes you
+will find a ferret so hard asleep that you can take him up, shake him,
+and then put him down again without waking him. If you are inexperienced
+in the ways of the ferret, you will imagine you have a corpse on your
+hands. But the corpse will in a short time open its eyes, shake itself,
+wag its tail, and then trot around with the others. When a ferret sleeps
+he will let his companions tramp all over his head and body without
+allowing himself to be disturbed in the least. When they have been fed
+too well they will sleep and be of no further use. If these over-fed
+ferrets are in a pen and you put rats in for them to kill, they will not
+wake up even if the rats crawl all over them, although the rodents are
+scared into fits and are trying to get away with all their might and
+main. A hungry ferret around a house will go scenting around as hunting
+dogs do, to discover any trace or hiding-place of his natural prey. This
+in itself is enough to drive all the rats to Jericho and make them stay
+there as long as the ferrets are kept around, for the rodents have an
+acute bodily fear of these prowling detectives. A ferret's being bitten
+by a rat happens only in extreme cases, but sometimes in cellars and
+other places that are swarming with rats, ferrets that have first been
+put in have to contend with great odds, and come out with some bruises.
+_Therefore if even a good, old hunting ferret should be bitten by a rat,
+he should not be used until the wound is perfectly healed again, even if
+it should take two or three weeks._ The ferret is very peculiar in this
+respect, and if this rule is not observed he may be spoiled as a hunter
+forever afterwards. The ferrets hunt downward, and if put on the upper
+or top floors in the evening they will turn up in the morning down in
+the cellar driving the rats before them. They should be kept in a dry
+place, and they rapidly get to know their pens, returning to them and
+waiting to be put in when through hunting. With a moderate amount of
+attention they will thrive and prosper in their work of extermination.
+
+
+IV.--FOOD.
+
+Ferrets should always be anxious for their meals. Rats are good ferret
+food; but never feed dead rats, as you run the risk of the rats having
+been previously poisoned, this also transmitting itself to the ferrets.
+If there are plenty of rats in the place the ferrets will be able to do
+their own choice marketing; otherwise, when not hunting, feed them
+either crackers and milk or bread and milk, with a pan of water always
+at hand in warm weather. Raw meat can be given them two or three times a
+week, but never feed liver or salt meat. When milk is not handy use
+water instead. For a pair of ferrets use a shallow pan for their food,
+the pan to be as large as an ordinary saucer. Once a day is enough to
+feed them. When you wish to hunt your ferrets at night feed them in the
+morning, and they will be in the proper hunting condition when night
+comes. Particular relishes are chicken heads, duck heads, rabbit heads,
+and sparrows. Dilute the milk occasionally, and change off with the
+bread or crackers soaked in water instead of milk. Besides this you can
+feed your ferrets the same as you do your cat, with the exception above
+mentioned. Ferrets enjoy their meals heartily--they grunt and smack
+their lips with much satisfaction when fed; particularly so when
+feasting off a rat, as there is nothing they enjoy more than a good,
+big, healthy one--turning the rodent inside out and ploughing out the
+interior with great exactness.
+
+
+V.--FERRET HOUSES.
+
+Ferrets must have plenty of good air, as they cannot stand being boxed
+up closely for a great length of time without getting diseased. I have,
+since the first edition of this book was printed, invented a model
+ferret-cage, in which I keep my stock in perfect health and in prime
+condition. I now make a specialty of manufacturing this contrivance, and
+have dubbed it "The Sure Pop Ferret Cage." It is of a solid build, but
+of a convenient size for expressage to any point. It is divided into two
+sections: (A) for sleeping and (B) for exercise and feeding; connected
+by an aperture just big enough for a ferret to get through. A
+(sleeping-room) is one-fourth the size of B and is kept dark, except
+that it has two small wire windows at each side which furnish perfect
+ventilation. B (for exercise and feeding) is constructed of wire on the
+top and the sides around a solid frame; the same flooring serving the
+two apartments. There is a wide door on the end of the larger section
+and also one on the roof of the smaller, so that the ferrets can be
+conveniently taken out or handled and the cage cleaned at any time. In
+winter it is best to keep the smaller division full of hay; it keeps the
+ferrets warm and clean. In the larger part you can use sawdust or earth;
+and another big advantage I wish to call attention to is the peculiar
+manner in which the connecting aperture is placed, so that the ferrets
+cannot carry out the hay, but can conveniently get from one apartment to
+the other. The price at which I am now disposing of these cages ($5.00)
+is merely nominal, but I prefer to have my stock housed in a comfortable
+and correct manner, as the ferrets will then do better work and get
+attached to their new master a great deal quicker than if their quarters
+were neglected. The above cage is, as I have said, of a very convenient
+size, and can be stored in the cellar of a house--if the cellar is
+dry--or can be placed in a barn or stable, or, if needs be, can be put
+into service as an independent out-of-door house. For the latter use the
+larger apartment should be boarded up, so that the ferrets are not
+completely exposed to the rough weather; it should also be kept three or
+four inches above the ground. If sawdust is used, it should be cleaned
+out at least every other day and replaced with a fresh supply. The hay
+need not be changed for one week.
+
+
+VI.--DISEASES.
+
+On the topic of ferret diseases, all the advice I can give is of a
+preventive, rather than of a curative, nature. My experience has been
+that, when a ferret is sick, it is the wisest policy to kill it
+immediately, as in all my practice I have never cured a sick ferret yet.
+Of course there are numerous remedies advocated by persons who claim to
+"know it all"; but experiment with these is simply a waste of time and
+material. The common diseases of ferrets are foot-rot, distemper,
+diphtheria, and influenza. Foot-rot is caused by dirt and neglect, and
+is the most common, dangerous, and devastating. It makes the feet swell
+out to twice their natural size, and become spongy; the nose and snout
+get dirty; the eyes commence to run, become perceptibly weaker, and
+then close. The tail also changes to a sandy and gravelly texture.
+Distemper is only a case of foot-rot aggravated. In influenza the nose
+runs violently, and there is the same affection of the eyes, accompanied
+by incessant sneezing. Diphtheria is a throat trouble, indicated by
+swelling of the neck, much heavy coughing, and nearly the same other
+accompaniments as the above diseases. To prevent disease, cleanliness
+and moderation are the simple antidotes: this is not such a hard thing
+to accomplish, as the ferret is a strong animal for its size, and very
+cleanly itself. Ferrets are sometimes run down by overwork in hunting,
+and get to be dull and sluggish; but they will soon regain their vigor,
+by letting them rest for awhile, and giving them plenty of food. Pure
+air, fresh, raw, bloody meat, and good milk, will soon bring the ferrets
+back to their natural state inside of a week.
+
+Ferrets are sometimes troubled with fleas of a large size, that use the
+animals up greatly if they are not checked immediately. A little Sure
+Pop Insect Powder rubbed in dry with the hand will settle the insects
+effectively in a very short time.
+
+
+VII.--HARDINESS.
+
+There are numerous remarkable examples of ferret toughness on record.
+Not long since, the following came under my notice: A couple of ferrets
+were used in a warehouse, and one of them, a handsome, dark-coated,
+mink-bred animal, accidently fell through a hatchway from the fourth
+story. He was brought to me in a horrible condition, the hinder part of
+the body being entirely smashed out of shape, and completely paralyzed.
+The poor brute was forced to drag along its useless trunk with the help
+of its forefeet only. I thought myself the animal was assuredly done
+for; but in a fortnight it had quite recovered the use of its limbs,
+which also assumed their natural form and function. It was again enabled
+to hop about as well as the rest; in fact, no trace of its former
+complete demolition remained. Another noteworthy example was this: A
+friend of mine, M---- was out rabbit-hunting with a companion carrying
+his ferret, which had been muzzled, in his pocket, a common way of
+transporting it. After he had bagged half a dozen rabbits in one place,
+he secured his ferret again, and went on walking some distance through a
+snowed-over part of the woods, chatting with his friend. He suddenly
+felt in his pocket, and found his ferret had got away. They retraced
+their steps, carefully searching for two or three hours high and low,
+but without success. M---- went home, satisfied his ferret was lost.
+Eight days afterwards, coming over the same ground, he saw a shadowy,
+thin spot of dirty fur under a ridge, which, after he had more closely
+examined, turned out to be the long-lost animal. It was completely
+exhausted and reduced to a skeleton, but still showed some signs of
+life. It had probably crawled in under some small opening in a ridge at
+the time of its being dropped, and so had escaped M----'s attention. As
+he found his ferret with the muzzle still on, it could not have procured
+either food or drink. The poor brute must have suffered agonies, showing
+_what horrible cruelty the practice of muzzling is_. M---- took his
+ferret home, fed it well, and inside of a month it was entirely
+restored, and just as good a ferret, in every respect, as ever. If
+ferrets are together, and are kept strictly without food for a length of
+time, they will devour one another quite readily, in lieu of better
+fodder.
+
+
+VIII.--BREEDING AND TRAINING.
+
+Ferrets are rather difficult animals to raise in numbers--it requires a
+large amount of patience, great care, and scrupulous neatness, although
+when full grown they are very hardy. The writer's ferret breeding
+grounds consist of special farms, on which are erected numbers of small
+barn-like structures, each furnished inside with a dozen pens, and an
+aisle running through the middle. Every pen is as large as a horse's
+stall, the boarding and other accessories are kept clean by vigorous
+scrubbing, the sawdust on the floor is changed once a day, and the pens
+and the ferrets are otherwise attended by experienced ferret men. Here
+the ferrets are taught to do their work of killing and hunting by
+practical experiment on live rats. Although it is in the nature of
+ferrets to hunt and kill rats, the same as it is for a bird to fly, yet
+we find a little extra course of training is necessary in both cases.
+
+It will not do to hunt with ferrets until they are at least seven months
+old. Ferrets breed but once a year, and have from four to nine at a
+litter on the average--it is very rarely they have two litters a year.
+They are trained to the whistle by feeding them every time this
+instrument is used, so that after awhile they promptly respond. The
+ferret is ruled through his stomach. The time of the ferret's getting in
+heat is in March, nine weeks after which they breed. The male invariably
+takes hold of the female as if he were going to strangle her. The young
+are born without hair, and must, therefore, be kept warm. They have
+their eyes open in thirty days, and should be fed on as much milk as
+they want.[A] The male should be removed from the female before the
+littering, the symptoms of which are exactly like a cat or a dog, or
+else he will destroy the entire brood. Care should be taken to have the
+female well supplied with food during the period of copulation, or else
+she may casually munch up the young herself, and the writer has lost
+many a pretty litter by this little habit of the unnatural mother. As in
+crops, there are years for raising ferrets which are more fortunate than
+others, some seasons having a fatal effect on the young ones.
+
+[A] They ought not to be handled before they are one month old.
+
+
+IX.--STRENGTH AND BITE.
+
+The great strength of the ferret is in the teeth, neck, and forefeet.
+One ferret can hold up eight times its own weight with its teeth. Twenty
+or thirty ferrets when hungry will fasten their teeth in a piece of meat
+and can be picked up in this way and swung around without ever causing
+them to think of letting go. They will hang to an object which they have
+been provoked against with a persistence which would make a Bill Sykes
+bull-dog blush with shame. The only way to loosen their hold is to grasp
+them firmly around the neck with the pressure on the skull, and to
+shove them _towards_ the object, not _from_ it, for if you try the
+latter way you can pull for a day and a night without any perceptible
+result on the ferret.
+
+The bite of a ferret is not dangerous; they will only bite a human being
+out of mistake, because they don't see well in the daytime. They imagine
+you are kindly holding down some bit of meat for them to chew at, and
+they don't bite because they are at all viciously inclined towards you.
+Of course you don't want to tease, annoy, or step on them, or you may
+find them loaded. If a ferret bites you, he will let go immediately, and
+you and the ferret both will quickly realize the mistake.
+
+
+X.--HANDLING.
+
+Ferrets should at first be handled by the back of the neck. The tail is
+the natural handle for lifting up a ferret, in the same degree that the
+ears are of a rabbit. The ferret should only be _lifted_ by the tail and
+should be handled by the back of the neck. After a wild ferret has been
+handled this way for some time he will get to be very tame and you can
+handle him in any way. He will get so that he will hop up in his pen at
+your approach and want you to play with and caress him, although it is
+never advisable to give him your perfect confidence, such as putting him
+to your face, etc.
+
+
+XI.--WITH CATS AND DOGS.
+
+Ferrets are easily kept with cats and dogs, and after a little training
+and discipline they will hunt together, the ferret being generally used
+to drive out the rats from the holes in a barn, etc., and the dog doing
+the killing. When they are first introduced to each other there will be
+a little sparring, _and the dog's master must strictly forbid his dog to
+touch the ferret or else the dog may kill it at the first wrestle_, but
+after the novelty of each other's appearance has worn off they will lie
+down together in one corner and be the best of friends, as I have
+witnessed scores of times. The writer has cats and ferrets on his farm
+that regularly feed and play together. Ferrets should not be kept in a
+place with sick dogs or cats, as the disease will surely be transmitted
+to them.
+
+
+XII.--THE FERRET'S ADVANTAGES AS A RAT EXTERMINATOR.
+
+Ferrets have been brought forward, chiefly by the labors of the present
+writer, to be regarded within the last few years as domestic animals.
+There is certainly, yet, a great degree of prejudice against the
+ferret--a natural result of ignorance of its ways; but we firmly believe
+that the more it comes in contact with man, and is bred in captivity,
+the more readily it will be put by him in the division of common
+domestic animals, and he will, furthermore, find it his best remedy in
+rat extermination, making the latter worthies as scarce as the ordinary
+rat has made its black-complexioned cousin.
+
+For this latter purpose the ferret's most apparent advantages are as
+follows:
+
+    _First._ There is nothing a rat is more afraid of, by nature, than a
+    ferret, so that the rats are driven off by acute bodily fear.
+
+    _Second._ The body of the ferret, and its small head also, is
+    remarkably flexible, thus enabling it to get into and drive out the
+    vermin from their holes and breeding-places.
+
+    _Third._ When through hunting they do not stray off, but return to
+    their pens, and wait there till they are put in.
+
+    _Fourth._ They devour the entire carcass of the rat, after killing
+    it, and do not leave the slightest trace of it around.
+
+    _Fifth._ The ferrets can be trained to obey the whistle somewhat
+    like a dog, and, by attaching a bell to their necks, they can always
+    be traced to whatever part of the building they may stray.
+
+    _Sixth._ After they get acquainted, and have been handled for some
+    time, they become affectionate pets, and can be fondled and caressed
+    freely.
+
+    _Seventh._ They are very cleanly, peaceful, and nondestructive in
+    other ways.
+
+
+XIII.--MISCELLANEOUS.
+
+Ferrets are extensively used to drive out rabbits from their holes,
+although the laws are very stringent against this sport. For this
+purpose they are generally muzzled, which is a cruel and unnecessary
+practice. All that is required of the ferret is to drive and scare
+out--the rabbit being then caught or shot. A bell around the ferret's
+neck will scare off the rabbit immediately, because the ferret is slow,
+and the rabbit will hear him coming from a distance. A properly trained
+and handled ferret needs no harness of any kind. Never muzzle a ferret
+for rats, as he may be savagely attacked where the rats are thick, and
+then be unable to defend himself. Ferrets are muzzled by tying their
+jaws, so that they can not bite, with waxed cords, etc. There are also
+muzzles like those made for dogs, only fitted to the ferret's size.
+
+A writer in a certain New York paper has put the ferrets to a peculiar
+use, on account of their flexible bodies. The following is quoted from a
+supposititious interview with the present writer: "A gentleman purchased
+a ferret, and became greatly attached to it. To show me how well he had
+trained him since the purchase, he called Pet (as he had dubbed him) to
+his side, and, dropping his pencil behind a large immovable desk, where
+it would be almost impossible to get it again, he merely said, "Get it!"
+In an instant the ferret was off, and soon back again with the pencil in
+his mouth. The gentleman said that he had been of great service to him
+in that way, and he recommended them to all old ladies who are in the
+habit of losing thimbles and spectacles in out-of-the-way nooks and
+holes." We can not help remarking, that this certainly imputes a trifle
+too much intelligence to the animal.
+
+There seems to be a curious superstition regarding the ferret amongst
+the lower classes of people from England, Ireland, and Scotland, to the
+effect that the ferret possesses healing properties. I have numbers of
+people come to me with pans of milk, part of which they want the ferrets
+to lap up, reserving the other half for medicine. They firmly believe
+this an infallible cure for whooping-cough in children. On some days so
+many people come for this purpose, with milk in all sorts of vessels,
+that the ferrets would certainly have burst their buttons, if they had
+any, in trying to do justice to all of it. The people wait their turn
+patiently, and come any day I appoint to have the ferrets drink some of
+the milk. I have heard many miraculous accounts from them of Mrs.
+So-and-so's baby who was down "that sick" with the whooping-cough, and
+the "doctors givin' her up, and she comin' to directly by a drop o' the
+milk the blessed little craythurs had been lappin' at; and it's the only
+rale rimedy yer can put intire faith in."
+
+The following is an extract from a Kansas newspaper: "An old Englishman
+is now traveling through the country with two pair of ferrets, with
+which he is making money by killing prairie-dogs. He has his pets in a
+wire cage, and, going to a ranch where there are indications of
+prairie-dogs, he offers to clean out the dog-town for 1 cent per dog.
+The price appears so very small, that the ranchman does not hesitate to
+accept the offer. One ferret will clean out from twenty to fifty dogs
+before he tires out, or, rather, before he gets so full of blood of his
+victims that he can't work well. When one is tired out, a fresh one is
+put into service; and so on until the town is rid of dogs."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE RAT.
+
+
+I.--THE RAT FAMILY AND ITS VARIETIES.
+
+The cynical, and, as he is generally acknowledged, villainous old rat,
+is a near kinsman of as innocent and peaceful a community as the
+squirrels, rabbits, and hares are, at least the natural histories unite
+in telling us that they all belong to the Rodentia or gnawing animal
+family. The three great subdivisions of rat are the Black, Brown and
+Water varieties. With the latter we have nothing to do, as it is an
+innocent field animal that never goes near man or his works, and is not
+properly one of the "whiskered vermin race" or rat breed. The dock rats
+belong to the Brown brigade.
+
+
+II.--RAT HISTORY.
+
+Regarding the rat's history and antecedents we are informed in some
+books on this subject, very positively, that the common or Brown rat was
+brought from Norway, while other naturalists insist with a pertinacity
+peculiar to the tribe that the animal originally comes from Persia and
+India. We feel justified in believing with the majority that this kind
+of vermin has its origin in Asia, that venerable continent of cholera,
+Heathen-Chinee, and Old Testament. But again, whatsoever the different
+opinions may be, it is certainly found that this species of rodent is
+distributed over every country on the face of the earth in a very near
+equal way, because every ship that leaves port takes in its cargo of
+rats just as regularly as it does its cargo of provisions and
+merchandise, and thus it can be readily seen how this delicate tender
+blossom is carefully though unwittingly transplanted. In this way the
+Brown rat, which is now the strongly predominant rat party, was brought
+to New York and America in 1775 from England, which would doubtless give
+great pleasure to that part of the population with an Anglo-maniac
+tendency and would probably reconcile them much more to this sect of
+vermin. In Europe the latter made their appearance in 1730, and then
+spread out to every inhabitable country. "For men may come and men may
+go, but I go on forever" would at the first glance seem to be the case
+with the rat tribe as well as with the musical brooklet of Tennyson, yet
+the history of the rat nations is like unto the history of man--one clan
+waging a long and bitter war of conquest and extermination against the
+other until hardly any trace of the conquered but once mighty and
+ambitious race remains. The Black or Indigenous rat had things all its
+own way in North America as well as through the rest of the civilized
+earth, before the Brown species' sweeping invasion, the former having
+been entirely subdued and are now very scarce. It was easy enough for
+the brown rats to do this, because they were bigger, bolder, and more
+ferocious. Their multiplying powers, too, were sixteen times greater
+than the vanquished nation whose origin is shrouded in the darkest and
+most complete mystery.
+
+The writer has on several occasions observed a dark colored rat on
+vessels coming from Brazil and other States of South and Central America
+that was unlike any specimen of this animal he had remembered ever
+seeing before. It was of a deep bluish tint, had an abnormally long
+tail, very large ears, and sharp, fiery, bead-like eyes, that looked in
+the dark like small electric lamps. Its agility and desperate
+nervousness was something marvelous, and its bump of destructiveness was
+largely developed also. This is probably a stray representative from
+some struggling colony of the dethroned black rat nation. Small numbers
+of them are occasionally brought to our own shores by these vessels. The
+rats generally escape from the ships, whereupon, as soon as the vessel
+is about to sail away again, their places are promptly filled by their
+brown brethren. Then the desolate black rats stray to the sewers of the
+city, where they are speedily overwhelmed and dispatched by members of
+the other faction, their inveterate foes and conquerors.
+
+
+III.--THE KING'S OWN RAT CATCHER.
+
+Although this black rat is inferior to the brown tribe in strength,
+size, and breeding powers, yet it must have been formidable also, for it
+was formerly thought necessary in England to institute the queer court
+position of rat catcher to the King. This was probably the case in other
+countries, too, but no records of it have been kept. According to an old
+historian this English rat catcher was a very dignified and mysterious
+individual, generally with gypsy blood in his veins, as it was thought
+necessary for him to know something of the Dark Science to properly
+perform his duties. He was attired in a rich manner, wearing a scarlet
+coat embroidered with yellow worsted on which were designed figures of
+rats and mice destroying wheatsheaves. He was looked at with much awe
+by the populace, as he turned out with a stately tread and great pomp,
+carrying a heavy staff with the insignia of his exalted office, whenever
+he took part in the royal pageants. This he did regularly, and it is
+also stated that he had an attendant, who never took part in the
+processions but who did the main part of the work, always with as much
+mystery as possible, upon the munificent stipend of tuppence a month,
+while the gentleman in the red coat superintended the job and received
+the glory--differing radically in this respect from the rat catchers of
+the present day.
+
+
+IV.--RAT SOCIETY, CANNIBALISM, AND FRIENDSHIP.
+
+Animals of nearly all kinds are fond of each other's society, and in
+their natural wild state are always found in herds. The city rats live
+in tribes or colonies of from twenty-five to sixty individuals, in the
+winter more and in the summer less. In the cold weather, when they are
+idle or at rest, they lie in one heap for the purpose of mutually
+heating each other. They change from the bottom to the top and alternate
+their positions very frequently, so as to give each one an opportunity
+to enjoy the warmer place at the bottom. The warmer the locality the
+less individuals there are in a heap. These rats live peacefully enough
+amongst themselves when they have enough to eat, but the minute they are
+apprised of a slightly vacant feeling in the region of the stomach they
+become the most savage of animals.
+
+The mother rat is very careful and fussy about her young until they get
+to a certain age. When they have passed this period, however, and the
+mother should, on some bright day, feel a trifle hungry, she would as
+readily devour her offspring as the children would make a meal of her,
+thus returning the compliment neatly. Individual cases of this kind
+occur also amongst the canine family, where dog-bitches have dined
+royally on a majority of their newly born pups. This tends to show that
+man is not the only intelligent animal who occasionally uses his
+fellow's carcass for fodder. Cannibalism, in the rat's case, takes place
+generally when they are unable to get any other diet, but then they will
+devour one another with gusto, skin, tail, bones, feathers, and all; the
+stronger killing the weaker and sucking the blood first. Hot blood is
+one of their greatest delicacies. The rats are born blind and naked, and
+their bodies are at this time of their life in a wobbly and unformed
+state. In this condition they would probably not be looked on by
+outsiders as things of beauty or delicate morsels, yet they are eagerly
+sought after by the old male rat to furnish him with his Sunday dinner
+dessert. The male pigs, cats, ferrets, and rabbits also indulge in the
+same pastime. This is made still more of a highly prized food for the
+old man rat by its rarity, as the mother will fight to protect her young
+with the boldness and savageness of a lioness defending her cubs. She
+will even go to the pathetic extent of chewing up her young ones herself
+rather than let them fall into the hands of her oppressor. The rats have
+an arrangement amongst them similar to the old Greek health law of
+killing off all sickly infants, that is, they eat their dead and infirm.
+This accounts for the fact that rats are never found at large sick,
+diseased, or disabled. Although, as a rule, it isn't considered the
+correct thing with us to dine or breakfast from our departed
+fathers-in-law or uncles, yet in the present case, peculiar as it may
+seem, it is the only admirable trait about the rat. It forms a safeguard
+to man against their increase, yet we must add, in a hurry, that the
+check put upon their growth by their cannibalism is lamentably small
+when compared to their enormous multiplying powers, which surpass those
+of any other animal.
+
+The writer had a curious experience in regard to the rat's sociability
+and companionship. He had once confined in a cage a company of twelve
+big slaughter-house rats and happened to neglect feeding them one
+evening. The next morning he was rather astonished to find a well
+polished backbone, a stubby remnant of tail, and only eleven other rats,
+all huddled up together compactly, in the congregation. He then gave
+them some food to stop them from further feeding on each other, but they
+rudely refused this, and he was again surprised to see ten of the number
+make a combined attack, that looked as if agreed upon, upon one
+unfortunate but especially large sized rat. The latter tried desperately
+enough to hold his own against such fearful odds, with much horrible
+squealing and screaming among them and a great deal of severe
+scratching, dashing, and tumbling against the tin-lined sides and the
+wire roofing of the cage. In a few seconds they were ranged all around
+in a circle feeding ravenously on the remains of the brave but ill-fated
+warrior. The writer has noticed, in numerous instances where numbers of
+rats were kept together in a cage, that they would on some occasions,
+just as the humor seemed to strike them, prefer their relatives and
+brethren as food to anything else. It did not matter, either, what
+other form of diet or delicacy had been set before them.
+
+
+V.--MULTIPLYING POWERS.
+
+Great quantities of rats are trapped and poisoned and hunted down by all
+animals larger than themselves; they are driven out of their homes, and
+systematically destroyed by paid vermin-destroyers; still all this seems
+to make but very slight impression on their numbers as they constantly
+pop up serenely from below just as if "Sure Pop" and rat-traps had only
+a mythic existence in fairy tales. They multiply prodigiously, the
+female breeding on the average about eight times a year, and having as
+many as fourteen at a litter, though in some instances this record has
+been badly beaten. A writer on this subject calculates that from a
+single pair of New York rats, living in moderately good circumstances,
+there will spring in three years' time a snug, happy little family of
+650,000 rodents, including mother, father, children, grandchildren,
+great-grandchildren, etc., and making due allowance for emergencies,
+accidents, and for a few hundred of them having been overpowered and
+used for food by the rest of this most worshipful company. He allows an
+average of eight young at a litter, half male and half female, the young
+ones having a litter at six months old. One cause of their being so
+prolific is that they flourish and breed as well on an abundance of
+swill, refuse, and garbage, as if they were carefully and tenderly fed
+three times a day.
+
+
+VI.--THE RAT'S UNABRIDGED BILL OF FARE.
+
+Next to the ostrich, the rat possesses the most capacious and
+accommodating kind of stomach. He will swallow anything, digestible
+or otherwise, although he can appreciate good things with much
+intelligence, when he comes across them. His bill of fare ranges all the
+way up from tallow-candles and shingles to roast-partridge and old
+boots. Rats are broadly omnivorous, and their food varies widely with
+their situation. They will eat soap, from the harsh and strong smelling
+washerwoman's kind to the richly perfumed and tinted toilet variety.
+With a vast and admirable toleration, they will feed upon bacon,
+sponges, ham, roots, flour, pork, roast-fowl, from boarding-house
+chicken to the microscopic quail; they will consume confectionery,
+potatoes, tomatoes, turnips, other vegetables, fruit of every
+description, from huckleberries to watermelons, raw, boiled, broiled, or
+fried fish, suet, eggs, bread, mutton, cheese, and butter. Also raw,
+cooked, boiled, broiled, fried, smoked, or roast-beef, and they swallow
+with keen relish wines of all brands and vintages, beer, whisky, gin,
+and brandy, and evince a loving fondness for all grades of oil, from the
+dirtiest, coarsest whale's blubber to the finest olive. The rat is
+verily a most cosmopolitan glutton, and enjoys the favorite dishes of
+the various nations with much the same hearty appreciation throughout,
+hugely delighting himself with frog's hind-legs in France, pickled
+herrings in Holland, potatoes roasted on the hearth in Ireland,
+pumpernickel and sourkrout in Germany, anise-seed, garlic, and olla
+podrida in Spain, birds'-nest, sharks' fins, and meat furnished by the
+rat's own brethren in China, caviare and candles with the Russians,
+roast-beef and ale in England, and pork-and-beans and peanuts with the
+people of a certain division of North America.
+
+Drawing the line at a particular point in the rats' endeavors to obtain
+"belly timber," as Sancho puts it, is an obsolete custom with them, for
+they devour putrid carrion, and human flesh, too, comes within this
+category, a further account of which will be found in the course of the
+next chapter.
+
+
+VII.--FEROCITY.
+
+The rat is dangerously ferocious when aroused, and is capable of being
+wrought up to a pitch of white heat fury. If he should be caught, his
+tail cut, his hair burnt, or if he should be wounded in any other way,
+but not sufficiently to weaken his system or momentary capacity, and he
+is then let loose, he will, through sheer madness and pure "cussedness,"
+hunt up, fight, and overpower his brethren individually, or else put
+them to flight in a body, without much ado. In fact, when he is worked
+up to this state, he wouldn't hesitate for a moment to attack an entire
+army of rats, or of other far bigger and more terrible objects. In many
+cases like this, rats have often obligingly rid premises of their own
+kind. If the tortured or maimed rat is in a weak condition afterwards,
+he will be promptly overpowered by the other members of the rat
+community upon general principles.
+
+We are often regaled in the newspapers with "brutally frank" accounts of
+people leaving their babies alone at home, and, upon returning, finding
+them frightfully lacerated by rats, slowly and reluctantly escaping from
+the scene. In like manner, they have become bold enough to attack
+solitary invalids in houses, who had work enough to defend themselves
+from, and to drive off, these ferocious little beasts, driven on by
+hunger like the true wolves of the wilderness.
+
+Living or dead, man is bound to furnish food for the rat; and in
+church-yards, where, ghoul-like, they choose the night as their time of
+appearing, they demolish the skeletons, littering the ground with
+remnants of the white, shining bones.
+
+
+VIII.--RATS IN BREWERIES, SLAUGHTER-HOUSES, MARKETS, STABLES, AND
+BARN-YARDS.
+
+The writer, in the course of his many rat-hunting expeditions, has had
+occasion to observe the rats in the lower cellars of many large New York
+breweries, where beer was about all they could get to live on. The sage
+old rodents, I observed, that had become accustomed to this diet--and
+had noted scientifically its queer effects in large doses on the rat
+system--indulged in a moderate way, and became aged, good-natured, and
+fat, like some jovial, bald-headed old merchant of the human type. The
+young rats, however, that had been recruited from the neighboring
+houses, would proceed immediately to paint a limited part of the town
+quite crimson with much hilariousness and quantities of beer, after
+which they could be killed or caught without much bother, lying around
+through the passage-ways in a beastly intoxicated state. Here they lay,
+squealing faintly, and without concern, on their backs. We may find in
+this, if we care to look for it, a really valuable temperance lesson;
+for, when the rodents imbibed with moderation, they were of a strong and
+healthy race, and greatly looked up to in the gnawing community; but,
+when they quaffed too heavily, they became poets, and cared not for the
+affairs of this small earth, whereupon they were ignobly killed with a
+club by some base son of man. In slaughter-houses, they become so
+unconscious after having gorged themselves with a hearty dinner of hot
+blood and other warm offal, that hundreds of them could be picked up and
+massacred with but very faint resistance on the otherwise cautious rat's
+part.
+
+In old markets, rats yet do valuable service as sanitary inspectors, by
+demolishing the amount of refuse and garbage; but in other channels they
+are the very demons of destruction. They are especially fond of cheese;
+and in the cheese-dealers' stalls they go at their work of procuring
+this in a highly artistic way. They drill holes through the flooring
+beneath the largest cheeses, and then work their way up and eat into
+them, consuming pounds upon pounds in a single night. The men sometimes
+find a large cheese with the interior scooped entirely out, leaving the
+rind, in hollow mockery, simply an empty, worthless shell. In the
+butchers' shops, the rats are connoisseurs in the quality of meat,
+always seeking out the primest portions of the beef in preference to any
+others.
+
+Around barn-yards they destroy the grain, oats, and every species of
+fowl, from the smallest to the largest specimen. In going at their work
+of destruction, they spring upon the neck of the victims, and pierce and
+bite it through with their teeth. They then suck the blood first, or
+else eat into the flesh as they would into a cheese, often contenting
+themselves with the blood and leaving the carcass. In stables the
+harness and the axle grease, even, suffice to make a square meal for
+them in default of better fodder; they also make the horses frantic by
+fiendishly gnawing at their hoofs.
+
+
+IX.--RATS AS WINE DRINKERS.
+
+In a neat and cleverly written little book on Spain, it is observed that
+"in the wine cellars the bungs in the heads of the butts containing
+sweet wines had little square pieces of tin nailed over them. This was
+to protect them from the rats who otherwise get upon the edge of the
+butt, and lick the sweet wine which oozes through, then begin to nibble
+the bung, and go on, if they are let alone, till out rushes the wine in
+a stream." The effects of the rats' ingenuity seems to bear rather a
+kind intention toward his two-legged brother, described in the
+following: "This happened not long ago to a large _tonel_ of the finest
+Pedro Jimenez, which, was stored with others in the ground-floor of a
+house, the owner of which was away in Seville, with the key, which he
+would trust to no one, in his pocket. One morning out came the bung,
+long nibbled by rats, and, about three hundred gallons of the wine ran
+out into the gutter. It was a queer sight, people rushing to dip it up
+with any vessel that came to hand, some of them presently using mops,
+and the small boys, who had found it was sweet, and lapped up as much as
+they could get at, lying around the street in various stages of
+intoxication," after the manner of our frisky friends, the joyous rats
+of the brewery cellars.
+
+
+X.--DESTRUCTIVENESS.
+
+The rat's bite, and especially that of old rats, is very poisonous, and
+its teeth are finely adapted for severe, quick, sharp, and deep cutting.
+It forms an urgent natural necessity for them, owing to the peculiar
+structure and growth of their teeth, to keep them incessantly working.
+The idea never comes to the rats of a possible breaking off of their
+tusks in attacking such flexible objects as bricks or lead, and the
+writer has seen cases in which the rats cheerfully went to work gnawing
+off corners of bricks and granite, in a persistent manner, so that they
+could make an opening large enough for their admission into a house.
+Nothing is exempt from their merciless teeth. They mutilate the woodwork
+on the valuable drawing-room chair just as readily as they would the
+dingiest, most plebeian sort of washtub, and they make sad havoc of
+upholstery of all kinds. They seem to have an especially lasting grudge
+against the transmission of knowledge, for books are gnawed and
+mutilated by them in immense quantities. They gnaw paper, from legal
+documents of the highest value (and many an important writing has been
+hopelessly destroyed by their agency), to the most worthless treatise on
+"Four-Fingered Mike; or, The Terror of Hoboken." Our clothing, shoes,
+hat-gear, etc., is turned out by the rats in a pitifully dilapidated
+condition. They also eat into lead pipes for the purpose of obtaining
+water, which it is hard for them to do without, although we have found
+that they can be without food for a much greater length of time. When
+the rats are pressed for drink on board ship, they lay low in the
+day-time, but in the evening they stealthily come out on the deck from
+the hold, in a long row, single file, in order to sip the moisture from
+the rigging.
+
+By examining the Fire Marshal's Report of New York City from 1868 to
+1882, we learn that rats have been the cause of 79 fires during 12
+years, making an average of five fires a year. This is on account of the
+rats' strong propensity for nibbling matches. In the same report is a
+warning against the loose and careless manner in which matches are left
+in pantries and closets infested by rats and mice with a fondness for
+this kind of diet. The great attraction for the rodents in the matches
+is the phosphorus, which these useful articles contain in abundance, and
+which the rats are able to scent out from a great distance.
+
+
+XI.--RATS AS FOOD.
+
+If you were lunching on something similar in taste to roast partridge,
+and some one told you, after you had finished, that it was only domestic
+house rat, your interior machinery would probably be disarranged--to
+such an extent is the bare mention of the word rat repugnant to our
+senses and stomachs.
+
+In the course of an experiment, the writer has cooked and boiled rats,
+and has found that their meat is of a very tender quality, and of a
+white, inviting appearance, withal, although he never went the length of
+partaking of it. Our objection to the rat's serving as food is too
+deeply rooted and profound to be removed, although there are a great
+many animals whose flesh forms our staple food that have habits much
+dirtier, and who do not nearly live upon as cleanly a diet (and this is
+a broad statement) as our despised house rat. From this eulogium we
+gently but firmly exclude the rat gentry of the sewers. We must give the
+Chinese credit for having overcome the effete European prejudice against
+the rat as food. Seemingly, it is the most highly prized dish that the
+sons of leprosy have in their bill of fare. The crews of the American
+and English vessels lying in Canton harbor used to amuse themselves
+greatly in catching a rat, and then holding the kicking animal by the
+tail so that the Celestials in the junks alongside could get a good view
+of it. The Mongolians would then get very much excited, utter
+exclamations of a gobbling, clucking sound, and as soon as the
+spluttering, frightened rat was flung from the ship an uproarious
+scramble followed, that made them look like so many monkeys quarreling
+over a cocoanut.
+
+A writer tell us, in a well-written magazine article, that he has lived
+fifteen years in China, and has had "experience at public banquets,
+social dinners, and ordinary meals, in company with all classes of
+people, but was exceedingly surprised at never having seen cat, dog, or
+rat served up in any form whatsoever." We are sorry the gentleman
+neglects to state _whether he'd know the difference_. The odds are
+twenty to one that he wouldn't; because, as he knows himself, the
+Chinese are excellent cooks, and can prepare a good meal from what in
+other countries would be thought offal. He makes the admission,
+however, that "there are some peculiar people in China, as well as
+elsewhere--credulous and superstitious--some of whom believe that the
+flesh of dogs, cats, and rats, possesses medicinal properties. For
+instance, some silly women believe that the flesh of rats restores the
+hair; some believe that dog meat and cat meat renews the blood, and
+quacks often prescribe it. What the Chinese really do eat does not vary
+much from that found on American tables; but there are certain dishes
+not on our programmes that are considered delicacies by everybody--such
+as edible bird's-nests and sharks' fins." To this we can add
+conscientiously, and upon weighty private authority--fried split rat,
+stewed dog, and curried cat with rice. In this place it would be
+appropriate of us to say something of the peculiarities of Chinese
+food--of the way the dogs and cats are carefully bred for the palates of
+the Chinese epicures; how these former animals are invitingly exposed
+for sale in the marketplaces; and we would willingly describe the
+methods of the dog and cat breeders, and the manner of curing and
+cooking the rats--but want of space forbids. We will merely state that
+there are many cases in which rats were eaten much nearer home than
+China; but, as the persons undertaking the experiment were slowly
+starving to death, and would have quickly eaten each other rather than
+accept the jolly alternative of dying by hunger, these instances are not
+of a remarkable nature, and are consequently unworthy of note in the
+present annals.
+
+
+XII.--RAT NESTS.
+
+Rats are impartial in their building sites--they have contentedly built
+their nests in the wretched and filthy peasant's hovel and in the most
+palatial and luxurious residences of kings, and a human habitation must
+indeed be in the extreme of squalor, dirt and decay where they are not
+found sprawling. Shakespeare pithily expresses this in the "Tempest:"
+
+        "In few they hurried us aboard a bark,
+    Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepar'd
+    A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
+    Nor tackle, sail nor mast--_the very rats_
+    Instinctively had quit it."
+
+The rat living in a house prefers warm, soft quarters, and invariably
+gets within comfortable distances of stoves, ranges, heaters,
+steam-pipes, etc. This is a very dangerous habit, because his nest is
+always constructed of inflammable materials. At times he also lugs
+matches into it, and then if the steam-pipes should become overheated,
+the matches blaze up and spread the flames. We have read in the
+newspapers of a great many fires afterwards found to have been caused in
+this way. The rat's nest is made of black and colored silk, of linen,
+woolen and cotton materials, bits of canvas, dirty rags, fur, silk
+stockings, and antique lace of much value jumbled together with string
+and crumpled paper. In one instance we knew of a rat to make use of a
+building material more out of the ordinary run than these, as it
+consisted simply of fifteen hundred dollars in greenbacks that had been
+put under the carpet of a room for safe keeping, and which was
+afterwards found in mutilated fragments, thatched together, forming this
+queer old mercenary rat's abode. The rat uses his nest too as a
+storehouse, and here he lays by quantities of edibles for a rainy day.
+The writer came across a nest, once upon a time, the sole building
+materials of which were those undergarments, both masculine and
+feminine, fashioned so slenderly, but which we dare not mention. This
+nest contained a peck or so of beans, though in the house where it was
+built beans had not been stored nor used, the writer found out, for at
+least three months. Out of doors or in fields the rats' nests are built
+of hay, leaves, shavings, and wool. The rat is, besides his other
+praiseworthy qualities, an inveterate old thief, and in decorating his
+dwelling picturesquely he becomes quite lavish, as gold rings, diamonds,
+jewels of every value, and gold and silver watches, that had been
+missed, were found in rat nests. Here they were generally discovered set
+off with much taste by a piece of salt bag. In one rat's nest I found a
+set of false teeth in perfect condition. The rat could not have wanted
+to use them himself, because they were several sizes too big for him. He
+probably wanted them for a tool-box or jewel-case or some other equally
+useful object. The writer remembers reading in some odd book of a
+good-natured person who had discovered a family of young rats in a piano
+that stood in a room for some time unfrequented. They had made
+themselves so much at home in the interior of the instrument that the
+owner was unwilling to disturb them by playing upon it. The female rat
+probably wanted to get her young to some safe place away from her liege
+lord, and had succeeded in gnawing up through the leg of the piano. She
+had brought with her, in which to build a nest, a dirty striped
+stocking big enough to have belonged to some distinguished Dime Museum
+fat lady.
+
+
+XIII.--THE RAT'S MUSICAL TALENTS AND EYESIGHT.
+
+Rats love sweet, soft, melodious tones, and a great many experiments
+have been made in taming rats thereby, but only with indifferent success
+upon the sharp-witted rodents, in spite of all the pretty stories to
+the contrary in the reading-books. So high is the rat's musical
+understanding rated, that there is a proverb among the people that rats
+immediately disappear from the house as soon as a young lady begins
+taking lessons on the piano. A mouth-harmonica seems to be the rat's
+favorite musical instrument, and its gentle strains exert the most power
+over him, far more than the tones of any other instrument. If the music
+be soft, mild, and pathetic, the rat will listen and come very near, for
+he is a very susceptible sort of beast, and, if closely observed, tears
+of sorrow, or of sad and tender reminiscence, will be seen coursing
+slowly down his cheeks. But if, on the contrary, the music be harsh,
+shrill, and discordant, such as would most likely be ground out by
+beginners, or if it proceed from a brass instrument, or drum, or if it
+be occasioned by a shotgun report, or explosion, it may drive the
+impressionable animals from places where they had been used to frequent.
+If, however, one is unsuccessful in trying to scare off the rats by
+noise at the first inning, a repetition will be of no avail.
+
+The rat will take up his nest in all and any out-of-the way places, as
+he shuns the light and lives wholly in the dark and gloom. This is the
+cause of his poor sight; he can hardly see at all in the daytime, and in
+the night a little better. If you should meet with a rat by day, looking
+square in your face, depend upon it he isn't able to see you at all, in
+spite of the pretty gleam in his black eyes. His minutely acute ears,
+however, do him good service instead of eyes, so that he has very little
+occasion to miss the latter at all.
+
+The rat is generally very timid, and extremely nervous, the slightest
+disturbance repelling him and making him shrink into obscurity and
+shadow. Yet it is his great peculiarity that he can adapt himself to any
+extremity of climate or description of place; he is found making himself
+at home in hotels, factories, public gardens, and other haunts of loud
+and constant noise, bustle, and confusion.
+
+
+XIV.--RATS AS MORALISTS.
+
+The Lord in making the rats is imputed to have done so to have them
+serve as scavengers for his wandering, wasteful tribes of children. But
+in our own day, as the majority of us do not wander, nor have wandered
+continually for the last two or three thousand years or so, and have
+slapped up many supposedly permanent villages like London, New York, or
+Paris, the restless, ambitious rat took into his head not to limit
+himself to such dirty kind of work exclusively. He then formed the
+resolution, and further carried out the purposes of his creator by
+taking upon himself the philosophic office of keeping man's pride in
+check. This he did by literally chipping a large proportion of the gilt
+off man's earthy grandeur, and by destroying his works and belongings at
+every possible opportunity, with right hearty good-will and much
+perseverance. "Therefore," says a writer, "whatever man does, rat always
+takes a share in the proceedings. Whether it be building a ship,
+erecting a church, digging a grave, plowing a field, storing a pantry,
+taking a journey, or planting a distant colony, rat is sure to have
+something to do in the matter; man and his gear can no more get
+transplanted from place to place without him, than without the ghost in
+the wagon that 'flitted too'."
+
+
+XV.--RATS IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS, AND THE MODERN RAT SUPERSTITIONS.
+
+In the merry days of old, rats were regarded as undisputed signs of
+witchcraft, and even scholars acknowledged this--at least they were
+compelled to, by the help of a blazing pile of faggots, or similar mild
+means known only to the good old times. What caused this belief among
+the people was, that an animal appearing to them so small should be the
+cause of such intense and continual annoyance to them. There was no
+barrier through which the rat could not effect its way to get at a
+certain object, thanks to its wonderful powers of gnawing. It was so
+omnivorous, ferocious, and destructive, that the people endowed the rat
+with superhuman qualities, and regarded it as a true child of the Devil,
+put upon this earth to be always pestering them. In regard to the rat's
+superhuman qualities, it appears to have certainly displayed more
+reason and acuteness, fighting in the daily battle of life, than any one
+of these thick-skulled humans could lay claim to. It was looked on with
+a great and most unreasonable aversion and loathing, born of
+superstition and fear, and which we find vehemently expressed in all the
+ancient books on the subject. This feeling, we cannot help believing, is
+not dead yet, according to the astounding anecdotes brought forth and
+widely copied in a great many of our American newspapers. The facts and
+data given in these learned articles about the rat's size, weight, and
+habits, in general, would make his hair stand on end with horror if he
+were to read them. As a matter of fact, the ordinary brown rat, which we
+find everywhere near man, is a pretty black-eyed, softly robed, and
+delicately constructed little animal; and although his fur may be
+plainly colored, like the plumage of the sparrow amongst birds, yet it
+is of the finest texture, and, when possible, is always kept
+scrupulously clean. In solitary captivity he is continually sitting on
+his haunches, cleaning his fur like a cat; and the writer has found, by
+actual experiment, the weight of twelve full-grown, well-fed New York
+city rats to amount to exactly twelve and a half pounds.
+
+Formerly, in European countries, there was a general belief in the
+existence of strange and mysterious relations between this great slimy
+monster and the high-priests of witchcraft and sorcery. It was thought
+that this was the animal best adapted to carry out the diabolical plots
+of his Satanic majesty. In one part of Norway, the peasants used
+devoutly to hold a fast day once a year, trusting thereby to get rid of
+the pests of rats and mice. They had a Latin exorcism which they used
+on these occasions, beginning with the words, "Exerciso nos pestiferos,
+vermes mures," etc. Anything a rat left its trace upon was an omen of
+ill to the owner; and when by any chance a rat was ever seen on a cow's
+back the poor animal was doomed to pine slowly to death in consequence.
+In Ireland it was believed that premises could be rid of rats by
+reciting a rhyme over their holes, which was commonly called "rhyming
+rats to death."
+
+
+XVI.--REVIEW OF THE RAT, AND CONCLUSION.
+
+But since these times the people have succeeded in getting rid of a
+great quantity of superstition attached to the subject. It has also been
+learned gradually that the actions of the rat are prompted much more by
+natural than by diabolical instinct. However timorous and innocent
+looking we have found the rat to be upon impartial observation, yet his
+is a case of wolf in sheep's clothing, for he is the one of the whole
+brute creation that does the most undermining damage in every way to the
+homes, workshops, counting-rooms, store-houses and cultivated fields and
+acres of man. The rat is also at times his very ferocious personal
+enemy. The rat's code of morals will be found rather deficient, as we
+have tried to explain in the preceding rambling remarks. In fact, there
+are condensed in this small animal all the vices of the animal world. We
+have shown him in the pleasant light of a cannibal briefly making an end
+of all family ties by transferring his relatives down his stomach. We
+have traced a faint outline of his great food greediness and his
+intemperance in strong drink, which is pretty near up to the human
+standard. We have pictured his strong liking for the hot blood of man
+and his utterly lacking an organ of veneration, digging up man's bones
+from their final resting-place to have them serve as food.
+
+The strongest weapon the rats have against man, ranking even above their
+wonderfully constructed teeth, are their prodigious multiplying powers,
+"and," says Richardson, "if the rats were suffered to increase in
+numbers, unchecked, the time would not be far distant when the entire
+globe would but suffice to furnish food for their rapacious appetites to
+the exclusion of the human race." The only way man can hold his own
+against their mighty ravages and prevent his whole social organization
+from being undermined by them, is to wage a steady and unrelenting war,
+by the help of his own arts and the animals specially assigned by nature
+to do service for him as police, against the most bloodthirsty, cruel,
+and acute of enemies.
+
+
+
+
+RAT EXTERMINATION.
+
+
+There are four distinct methods of rat extermination, viz.: 1. Traps. 2.
+Poisons. 3. Cats, Dogs, and Ferrets. 4. Human Rat-catchers. We will
+first give some practical hints on
+
+
+I.--TRAPS.
+
+The rat is by no means one of the least intelligent of quadrupeds, and
+there is one thing we feel solid about--when he knows you really want to
+trap him he'll do his level best to avoid your kind intentions. There
+are shoals of ingenious rat-traps with plenty of mechanism in them which
+are certainly good as long as you don't plainly advertise them to the
+rats, which is about equal to saying "Look out, rats, this is a trap for
+you, with a bait!" After you have put out this charitable notice nary a
+rodent will you catch. We will now show how most simple people, after
+catching a lone specimen, give themselves "dead away," to speak
+classically, to all the rats there are in the neighborhood. Get a trap,
+no matter of what shape, material or brand--but by all means get one
+that doesn't let the rat out again after he has been once caught. Bait
+it with anything nice and tempting, and put it near the rat-hole, just
+where they come out, any time before you go to bed. In the morning you
+probably find you have caught a rat--maybe a big, grizzled old
+fellow with a scabby tail, or else a young one, half frightened to
+death--anyway it _is_ a rat, and a real live one at that, and you can
+forthwith proceed to kill him. Now clean your trap and smoke it out.
+Bait it again with the same care and, hundred to one, you find--_no
+rat_. The mystery of it is this: The first rat that came out of the hole
+on the first night saw you had put down something for him, so he sniffed
+the dainty bait and remarked under his breath that he was a devilish
+lucky dog and that he had struck a superior sort of a free lunch all to
+himself. With that he entered--the trap snapped harshly and cruelly, and
+the nervous little animal became frightened and sought to escape from
+his seeming abode of luxury. He couldn't get out, squealed long and
+plaintively, and worked hard against the sides of his prison. Bye and
+bye all the other rats came out to see the cause of all the racket.
+After investigating they find their young friend has been dolefully
+sold, and together make and keep a vow to steer clear of your traps ever
+afterwards. This is why you catch but one rat and no more; for a much
+more stupid and less nervous animal than a rat is would keep away from a
+similar arrangement in the future. We shall now try the experiment over
+again, but in a different fashion. Suppose we select a big round trap
+with falling doors at the sides and a hole on top. First be sure that
+the doors lift up and fall down very easily. If the bottom of the trap
+is of wire place it on sawdust, so that the rats are comfortable in it.
+Put the trap _away_ from the hole, near the wall of the cellar, if in
+winter near the warmest place, always in a dark spot. As our friend
+likes comfort so much, put a bag over the trap, so that he can find the
+falling doors easily. Get some rags scented with about fifteen drops of
+either oil of rhodium, oil of carraway, oil of aniseed, or a mixture of
+these oils. First tie a string around them and swab them around the
+rat-holes, then drag them on the ground near the wall, to the place
+where the rat-trap is and rub the rags well over it, then put them in.
+Have some nice tempting bait in the trap, either carrots, meat, broiled
+bacon, or cheese--anything fresh will do--but be careful to put in
+enough of it. If the trap is placed as we have above directed the rat
+will get in and not try to escape. _Make the trap as much unlike a trap
+and as much like a natural hiding-place as possible._ If this is done,
+it is highly probable you will have your cage chock-full of rats the
+next morning. It is very seldom this fails, but if it should not succeed
+the first night proceed as follows: Put the trap exactly as I have told
+you, with the exception to tie up the sliding doors. Let it stand there
+until the rats have eaten it out several times, replacing the bait.
+After the rats get used to frequent the place and think they have a
+"soft snap" on you, let down your falling doors again and you have them
+all!
+
+After all is said and done, the most practical of all rat-traps is my
+little "Special Steel Trap," which catches one rat at a time, but its
+cost is so reasonable that you can have a dozen of them for the price of
+one of the big wire ones. It is an utter impossibility for the rats to
+avoid being caught if the traps are properly placed, and it can, with
+ease, be so nicely adjusted that the gentlest touch of a rat's paw will
+insure his immediate capture. And when Mister Rat has put down that
+little paw of his he is as securely held as if he were nailed to
+the floor. I have over ten thousand of these traps in use in my
+professional rat-exterminating operations and sell barrels of them. The
+larger the space to be covered the more traps are required, and, where
+it is possible, remove your rat as soon as caught. Place the traps in
+the natural run of the rats; around swill-barrels, along the walls, etc.
+Its chief practical beauty is its innocent appearance, as there is
+nothing about its placid surface which tells the rats of its unerring
+aim. With every trap we furnish a chain-attachment and fastener; the
+latter is for the purpose of securing it to the flooring and prevents
+the rats from dragging the trap. As this Special Steel Trap is a boon to
+large institutions, ships, shops, factories, stores, hotels,
+office-buildings, flat-houses, warehouses, private dwellings,
+slaughter-houses, etc., etc., I quote the following prices on it, which
+are net:
+
+    Per dozen                 $3.00
+    Per hundred               20.00
+
+
+II.--POISONS.
+
+The common rat poisons are Arsenic, Strychnine and Paris-green. These
+are put up by enterprising people under a multitude of suggestive names,
+without specifying the kind of poisons used, however, or even a warning
+of their being poisonous, as the law implicitly directs. There is,
+indeed, a great deal of criminal negligence in the way these poisons are
+put upon the market, as in some the proportion of poison is so great
+that it would kill an elephant--whereas it should be exactly
+graded to the rat's capacity. The proportion of arsenic in one
+very-much-advertised rat-poison now in use, as analyzed by Dr. Otto
+Grothe, a Brooklyn chemist, consists of 98.19 per cent. pure arsenic
+and 1.81 per cent. admixtures (coal, etc.). Would-be suicides and
+murderers have made use of these poisons extensively. Poisons in powdery
+form--such as arsenic and strychnine--are liable, very easily, indeed,
+to get mixed up with food, and have in that way been a powerful
+death-dealing agency. Their peculiar effect on the rats is to allow them
+to get over-doses, causing violent vomiting, followed by complete
+failure to kill or drive out. The Phosphoric Paste, the "Sure Pop" brand
+of which is very carefully manufactured by the present writer, is free
+from all of these objections, as it is in salve form and very hard to be
+accidentally mixed up with edibles of any kind. It is impossible for the
+rats to receive overdoses of it; and the phosphorus has the effect of
+burning and irritating them internally and forcing them to run for fresh
+air. Arsenic and strychnine rat-poisons are usually prepared in such
+heavy quantities that the rats prematurely die in the holes. On the
+other hand, the amount of actual poisonous matter in this "Sure Pop"
+Phosphoric Paste has been exactly proportioned to the rat's system,
+making the amount of poison very slight. There is no secret at all in
+the compounding of this preparation, but it requires much experience and
+study of the rat's nature, preferences and habits to make it so that it
+will work with proper effect. The utmost daintiness is also required in
+the handling of all its ingredients. We have practically shown on page
+40 how the smell of phosphorus is the most powerful of attractions known
+to the rat, and how it will operate when everything else fails.
+
+
+III.--DOGS, CATS AND FERRETS.
+
+The claims of cats as one of the rat remedies we shall have to dismiss
+in very short order, as the exceptional cases in which they do good work
+are altogether too few and far between. The only domestic animal which
+really possesses value in _hunting_ rats is the ferret, as, by reason of
+its india-rubber joints, it can pursue its prey home. Any terrier--no
+matter what variety--having a fair amount of intelligence can be broken
+in with ferrets, so that your ferret can do the hunting out and the
+dog--at the proper moment--can do the killing. The fox-terrier is by far
+the best ratting-terrier. He is quick, understands and remembers what is
+taught him, is full of ambition, and readily learns to regard the
+ferrets as his partners in the rat-hunt.
+
+
+IV.--HUMAN RAT-CATCHERS.
+
+The directions given with each of the remedies advocated by me are so
+plain that anyone can successfully put them into use. Where the rats
+have got altogether too thick, or where they hold possession of a place
+in such a way that there appears no clue to dislodging them, it is quite
+advisable to call in an expert. To this effect I have perfected a
+regular system of rat-exterminating in which the remedies I mention in
+this book are systematically applied--under my own superintendence--by a
+corps of experts. Through this improved system I am enabled to take
+contracts to exterminate rats (and also other vermin) from any kind of
+building in any city or town in the United States, providing the job is
+large enough. Correspondence on the subject given prompt attention.
+
+
+
+
+THE ORIGIN OF THE FERRET.
+
+WITH HINTS TO DARWIN.
+
+
+We have stated, in the first chapter of this book, that the verb
+"ferret" is derived from the animal of the same name, but many
+_savants_, and even "plain people," as Lincoln said, have cudgeled their
+brains trying to trace from whence the _animal_ has derived its name.
+After long and tedious delving into histories and musty tomes having
+even the slightest bearing on the subject, we are able herewith to
+enlighten these gentlemen. For this illumination they have long been
+waiting, we have no doubt, with the utmost anxiety and impatience. This
+requires us to go at length into the matter, and entails upon us the
+writing of the ferret's development from prehistoric times until merged
+into the animal of to-day, with its present shape, instincts, and
+habits. In the course of the essay we also prove conclusively that the
+animal originally comes from America. Many scientists will no doubt deem
+it peculiar to find us using many modern and untechnical terms in the
+following history, but let them rest assured that if we were to make use
+of our extensive scientific knowledge of the subject it would compel
+them to hunt up all the lexicons that had ever been compiled!
+
+In the very good and very old days before our present reckoning, when
+mankind sported tails and was protected against the wind and weather by
+a long, hairy covering, and when both animals and man had a language of
+their own--in those times it was that two fair-sized buck Martens, one
+of the Beech and the other of the Stone species, stood on the southern
+point of what is now called Cape Farewell, in Greenland, longitude 30°
+30´ east, latitude 60° 2´ north. They trembled violently from
+excitement, because they had just finished a friendly set-to of 64
+rounds, lasting 3 hours 10 minutes, New York time, and which both had so
+far survived. The referee, an old good-natured fox, saw with his keen
+off-eye that there was no more fight in either of them, and pronounced
+the battle a _draw_, telling them to try it again on some future day,
+whereupon he speedily took his departure, as he was very busy just at
+that time umpiring base-ball games. The contestants then shook forepaws,
+a custom which has survived the centuries, and after a little cold water
+and rest had restored them they mended their broken friendship and made
+solemn pledges not to try harming each other any more. They further made
+a bargain to set up a business firm, which meant in those days, as it
+does now, division of spoils. In the language of that time the Beech
+Marten was called _Ver_, and his partner, the Stone Marten, _Rect_,
+therefore the firm was called "The Ver and Rect Bill-of-Fare Improving
+Co." This title explains part of their object in making the trip
+described in the following pages. The other agreements were to do it in
+perfect harmony, and at the end of their pilgrimage to stick forever by
+that particular diet that had suited them best. They were both very
+glad of their compact, because each one had formed a high opinion of
+the other's powers evidenced in the pummeling of one another's ribs.
+Talking things over leisurely, they found themselves getting hungry, and
+as their stomach was and is yet the Mainspring of their actions, they
+resolved to start immediately on the expedition. After they had traveled
+48 hours due south-east (a direction which they instinctively followed
+all through their wanderings) they had the good luck to stumble upon a
+small but very fat pig, snoring comfortably on the banks of a river,
+known then as the Atlantic river, but since developed into the ocean of
+the same name, a further account of which is given further on. Ver and
+Rect found the stream about the size of our present Hudson as it flows
+by Weehawken. The partners accordingly killed the pig without much
+bother, ate it, and took a short nap (for those times) of three days,
+and after waking they stretched themselves, hopped around, and took a
+drink from the river, but no sooner had they swallowed a little of the
+water than they commenced spitting, spluttering, and twisting their
+faces into all shapes, as the water was very salt and brackish. Eating
+the very fat pig and drinking the salt water had not agreed with Ver and
+Rect, and they put down the following on the tablets of their minds for
+future reference: "Fat pig bad feed--salt water ditto." Hence all their
+descendants, right up to this day, never indulge in pork or use salt at
+all.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Ver, who wore spectacles, then took the reckoning, and found they had
+just traveled 1910 prehistoric miles, quite a distance for those days.
+The firm resolved lazily to start again, and after yawning a good deal,
+and lying in the sun a little while longer, they still felt unpleasant
+fat-pig and salt-water sensations. They paddled across the Atlantic
+river, and by the time they had arrived on _the other side_ they had no
+objection to lunching again, and as fortune seemed to favor them, they
+spied in the distance a very big woodchuck. After an exciting chase, Ver
+and Rect captured him, and at first devoured him with vim. The poor
+Martens, however, were doomed to disappointment, for when they had
+bolted their prize and had taken their usual nap of three days, they
+woke up with great pains in their much-abused interior departments. They
+thought the woodchuck business over carefully and made this inward
+memorandum: "Woodchuck may be very good, but we prefer lead-pipe."
+
+Four days after the feast of the woodchuck, wandering on rather
+discontentedly, they were suddenly delighted by a wonderful change in
+the climate, that had previously been harsh and cold, but was now mild
+and radiant. Birds were singing from beautiful trees, Nanny and Billy
+goats, and sheep were gamboling about cheerfully. Lions and wolves were
+doing a thriving business, and, just like the bulls and bears of to-day,
+were all living on the poor lambs. The Martens wandered about a mile
+through this happy land, and in course of time, bethinking themselves of
+their sacred mission, they fell to work on a Billy goat, who was slain,
+after a hard fight, as an offering to their great god, The Stomach. It
+is evidenced by our records that this goat must have been a huge animal,
+for Ver and Rect lived three days on his carcass, although at the end of
+this time they felt rather sick. The entry in their inward journal was
+as follows: "Disgusted with Billy goat; hopes of finding our steady
+feed very gloomy." Rect began to feel discouraged, but Ver cheered him
+up, saying unto him: "Rec', I have a feeling within my bones which tells
+me our promised land of Good Feed draws near. Brace up thy suspenders,
+and let us be of good mien and travail onward, for there is no
+philosopher on earth of a cheerful temper with his belly unhinged."
+Verily, after a two days' journey, they observed, to their joy, right on
+their road, a great mountain overgrown with timber and underbrush. Upon
+reaching it, they found it full of game of all kinds, some of which they
+began to attack immediately. Among others they caught a little, delicate
+gray rabbit, and after critically tasting its flesh, were delighted with
+its flavor. They thought now they had found a solid bill-of-fare
+material, and made arrangements for staying in the place by digging
+themselves comfortable beds under the roots of a big tree. There was
+such an abundance of these delicious rabbits that Ver and Rect concluded
+they had enough of a wandering life, and that the mission of the
+"Bill-of-Fare Improving Co." was fulfilled. They called the land, on
+account of the great number of these little animals, _Engelland_,
+meaning the land of the Engels, or angels, at present England. Having
+kept bachelor's hall for awhile under the big tree, they formed the
+acquaintance of some of their rich neighbors, who were very kind to
+them, and whom the Martens found to be relatives of theirs. To Ver and
+Rect's former pastimes of hunting, eating, drinking (cold water), and
+sleeping, they now added courting. Ver acquainted himself with a pretty
+young Miss Weasel, a blonde, and paid her attention, and Rect took
+fancy to a handsome and stately Miss Mink, a brunette. In two hours
+after their first courtship--the thing was done quicker in those
+days--Ver and Rect were married men. They begot children, grandchildren,
+and great-grandchildren, who in their turn intermarried into the
+families of the Sables, the Fitches, and the Ermines, but all the
+descendants of Ver and Rect went under the name of Ver-Rects, afterwards
+verrects, until it has been gradually mellowed into our present
+_ferrets_. The ferrets now lived in the woods of old Engelland, hunting
+and eating rabbits and enjoying themselves with all their families on
+this only ingredient of their bill-of-fare, which Ver and Rect thought
+of making the permanent ferret food by law. Of course the ferrets grew
+into the most expert of rabbit-hunters, and they have retained this
+ability to the present day. Never after they had been in Engelland did
+Ver or Rect or their descendants subsist on pigs, woodchucks, or
+billy-goats. One morning a great accident happened, which brought them a
+different kind of food, consisting of a large army of black rats. The
+way it happened was this: The earth on which we now live, and which
+swings around at a pretty good gait on its own axle, broke it right near
+the north pole and all the waters spilled out there. They overflowed the
+Atlantic river 1500 miles on each side, and thus formed our present
+Atlantic Ocean. The high mountain of England was just saved from the
+water, making it an island, and just then 750,000 live rats swam on
+shore to save themselves from drowning.
+
+The ferrets killed a few of these rats to experiment upon, and were more
+than delighted with the tender meat, Ver and Rect making the ferret's
+bill-of-fare for all ages chiefly consist of rabbits and rats. Sometimes
+the ferrets went rabbit and sometimes rat-hunting, and were as expert in
+the one as in the other, and so it is that the ferret of to-day occupies
+itself, by the mandates of its forefathers, Ver and Rect, in the
+vigorous hunting throughout all lands of the rat and the rabbit. From
+whence the rats came before they arrived in England will be found in the
+next chapter.
+
+
+THE CONTINUATION OF THE FORMER CHAPTER.
+
+Our rats are from China. The proof of this will be found in more
+particularly observing the rat's looks, vices and nature, the manner in
+which he carries his (pig)tail, and further, the great love of the
+Chinaman for him. We contend also that the Chinaman and the rat are
+relatives, for it can be said of both, as it has been said of one,
+
+    "That for ways that are dark,
+    And for tricks that are vain,
+    The heathen Chinee is peculiar."
+
+So we say positively that the rat is Chinese, and there is no record
+that can prove the contrary. The rats were kept locked up in that great
+empire of solid fences before they showed themselves to the other
+countries of the earth. Forty years before the great Ver and Rect
+battle, 750,000 big rats, with their tails out straight, like real
+Chinese pig-tails, concluded to make an exodus out of the heavenly
+territory, under the leadership of 75 big chiefs. They didn't want to
+leave particularly, but they were afraid of being starved out
+altogether, or else murdered for food by the Chinese army. After the
+rats had put themselves in battle array, and were duly formed in
+procession, the 75 big chiefs, who were distinguished from the others by
+their big red noses and muscular forms, held a council. At the end of a
+three days' session, during which a great many speeches had been made
+and a good deal of fighting had been going on, a very old political
+rat-boss arose and made a proposition. His speech was about as follows:
+"Honored Rats, and fellow-citizens: I have been a rat for a good many
+years, and don't want to change my business. I must say I like being a
+rat. But if we are hacked up in soup, or starved out completely, I have
+my doubts of our staying powers. Countrymen and lovers, this is what we
+are threatened with, and we must move. Where to? is the question that
+arises, and I have thought it over. The climate is hot to suffocation
+and very unhealthy here; let us trust to luck and go west, as a friend
+of mine said on a similar occasion. 'Go West, young man, go West,' I say
+unto you now, and I advise you to do so as speedily as possible." This
+speech was received with "tremendous applause" for the old rat waxed
+very eloquent, and the "go west" resolution was passed unanimously. An
+amendment was put in, changing the course to north-west, for the meeting
+was held during such hot weather, that some of the radicals wanted to
+start out immediately and settle on the North Pole. They were promptly
+overruled, of course, and the 750,000 rats, including males and females,
+wandered on slowly in their chosen direction, increasing on the road to
+a wonderful extent. The council concluded to hold a thorough count or
+census of rats, and each male rat, it was provided, should not be
+bashful about coming forward and giving the true number of his whole
+family--no doctoring of the returns allowed. After the count was
+completed, all the rats over and above the original amount, 750,000,
+agreed to stay in the country they had arrived at. The originals kept on
+moving towards the north-west, but the others filled up every section of
+the earth they passed through. The rats made friends with neither man
+nor animal on their journey. First they made a stop in a state where all
+the owls--although they were countrymen of the rats, having emigrated
+from China--fell upon them, and there was a pitched battle, the rats
+afterwards hiding themselves in their holes under ground after losing a
+great many in dead and wounded. One day they agreed to make an excursion
+out of the line of their route and so take in Egypt. In a few weeks they
+here ate up all the corn from the fields, stealing and hiding away
+anything edible, and quite creating a panic, but always fighting shy of
+the daylight. We read in the histories of a great locust plague in
+Egypt, about this time, but on this point we have a revelation to make.
+The locust was just as innocent of this crime as it is of building the
+Brooklyn Bridge--_it was the rats that did it_. When the rats arrived in
+Greece they scored a signal victory, because it was there that they
+extirminated a whole nation--the mice--and the former have strongly held
+this country ever since. We are authentically informed, by reference to
+our own private rat historian's notes of this trip, that the first place
+the rats met their great enemy, the Dog, was in Ancient Rome, where the
+dogs were put on them by man with much success, and here the rats could
+get no firm foothold. This caused them a roundabout journey north, and
+when they thought they had pretty well established themselves in ancient
+Gaul, now France, they were raided by a strange tigerish kind of animal
+which proved afterwards a lasting antagonist of theirs--the Cat. The
+poor rodents found here the other enemies they had encountered on the
+road, the owl and the dog, who were always urged on fiercely by man.
+While the rats were struggling along in France, the land was convulsed
+by an earthquake, causing the Atlantic river's banks to be overflowed.
+This submerged the land on which the rats were, and as they all could
+swim they headed their course for England, the nearest dry land. It was
+here the ferrets joined man, dogs, cats and owls, but the more the rats
+were hunted, the more acute and crafty they got to be, until they found
+out innumerable hiding-places and ways of preservation, so we have them
+still with us to-day. We thus close our story of research, through which
+we have shown America as the birthplace of the ferret, China of the rat,
+and England as the first country employing ferrets for rat-hunting.
+
+
+
+
+                                FERRETS:
+
+                            SURE POP BREED.
+
+                           RAISED AND TRAINED
+
+                                 BY THE
+
+                          AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK.
+
+                   EVERY FERRET SOLD IS WARRANTED AS
+                              REPRESENTED.
+
+                        DEPOT--92 FULTON STREET,
+
+                             NEW YORK CITY.
+
+
+
+
+                             HOUSES CLEARED
+
+                                 --OF--
+
+                                  RATS
+
+                             WITH FERRETS,
+
+                                 --BY--
+
+                               CONTRACT.
+
+                        DEPOT--92 FULTON STREET,
+
+                             NEW YORK CITY.
+
+
+
+
+                                SURE POP
+
+                           PHOSPHORIC PASTE,
+
+                                FOR THE
+
+                             DESTRUCTION OF
+
+                        Rats, Mice, and Roaches,
+
+                            MANUFACTURED BY
+
+                          "SURE POP" ISAACSEN.
+
+                           =PRINCIPAL DEPOT:=
+
+                           92 FULTON STREET,
+
+                             NEW YORK CITY.
+
+
+
+
+                                SURE POP
+
+                             INSECT POWDER
+
+                                FOR THE
+
+                             DESTRUCTION OF
+
+           Roaches, Bed Bugs, Ants, Fleas, Flies, Mosquitoes
+              Moths, Spiders, Scorpions, Centipedes, Plant
+             and Animal Lice, Croton Bugs, etc., etc., etc.
+
+                   _OWN IMPORTATION AND WARRANTED THE
+                          BEST IN THE WORLD._
+
+                           =PRINCIPAL DEPOT:=
+
+                           92 FULTON STREET,
+
+                             NEW YORK CITY.
+
+
+
+
+                                SURE POP
+
+                         INSECT POWDER KILLERS.
+
+
+     This valuable little instrument was patented by me years ago.
+      It is a handly little machine for dusting the Insect Powder
+    around. It is made of vulcanized rubber, having a metallic top.
+
+                           =PRINCIPAL DEPOT:=
+
+                           92 FULTON STREET,
+
+                             NEW YORK CITY.
+
+
+
+
+                                SURE POP
+
+                     Patent Insect Powder Bellows.
+
+                        PATENTED APRIL 29, 1884.
+                       NUMBER OF PATENT, 297,693.
+
+          THE ADVANTAGES OF THIS MACHINE OVER ALL OTHERS ARE:
+
+    1. It is easily loaded.
+
+    2. There is no waste of powder.
+
+    3. The Powder can not get back into the Bellows.
+
+    4. The top can not get worked off.
+
+    5. The Bellows are made under my own supervision, and every one is
+    guaranteed.
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including unusual spelling and inconsistent hyphenation.
+
+"skarks' fins" has been changed to "sharks' fins".
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42305 ***