Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including some inconsistencies of hyphenation.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
STUDIES IN THE ART OF RAT-CATCHING.
BY H. C. BARKLEY,
AUTHOR OF
"MY BOYHOOD," "BETWEEN THE DANUBE AND THE BLACK SEA," ETC.
POPULAR EDITION.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1896.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
PREFACE.
My publisher writes to say that he, and he thinks others too, would like
to know how I ever came to write such a book as this! It came about in
this way. Some two years ago, I was about to leave England for a
considerable time, and a few days before starting, I went to stay in a
country house, full of lads and lassies, to say good-bye. One evening,
while sitting over the study fire, the subject of rat-catching came up
and, as the aged are somewhat wont to do, I babbled on about past days
and various rat-catching experiences, till one of the boys exclaimed,
"I say, what sport it would be if they would only teach rat-catching at
school! Wouldn't I just work hard then, that's all!"
The stories came to an end at bed-time, and I was then pressed by my
hearers to write from foreign lands some more of my old reminiscences,
and I readily gave a promise to do so. In this way most of the following
stories were written; and in writing them, I endeavoured to carry out
the idea that they were exercises to be used in schools.
I don't anticipate that head-masters will very generally adopt the book
in their schools; but I hope it may, in some few instances, give boys a
taste for a wholesome country pastime.
The characters and incidents are rough, very rough, pen and ink sketches
of real people and scenes, and the dogs are all dear friends of past
days.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. _Page_
The Ferret Family--Crossed with the Polecat--Choosing
Ferrets--Hutches--Feeding Ferrets--"Bar the
Tail"--Handling Ferrets 8
CHAPTER II.
Bag _versus_ Box--Ferrets Fighting--The Ratting Spade--
Ratting Tools--Hints to Schoolmasters--Learning
Dog-Language--With a Scold in the Voice--Dogs'
Kennel--Treating Dogs Kindly--Dogs in their Proper Place 23
CHAPTER III.
Aristocratic _versus_ Plutocratic--Come-by-Chance--Chance's
Friend--Nondescript Tinker--Grindum--How I got Grindum--
Grindum's Friends--Jack and his Sister--"Jack Took Me"--
End of an Ugly Story--Grindum's First Rat--Pepper and Wasp 42
CHAPTER IV.
A Day's Ratting--An Autumn Walk--"Steady, Dogs, Steady"--A
Ferret Disabled--Rats up a Pollard--A Rat-catcher's
Picnic--Rats in a Drain--A Weary Walk Home--"Kennel, Dogs,
Kennel" 67
CHAPTER V.
A Poor Day's Ratting--A Rat in a Queer Place--Rats in
my Lady's Chamber--Rats in a House--Slaughter in a
Cellar--Dead Rats in a House 85
CHAPTER VI.
A November Day--A Laid-up Ferret--A Tramp Home in the
Wet--A Snug Evening--Things Students should Know--Muzzling
Ferrets--Sucking Blood--A Strange Use for a Dog's Tail 96
CHAPTER VII.
Rabbit Catching--Tools for Rabbit Catching--An Easy Day's
Rabbiting--Ferreting a Bank--A Deep Dig in the Sand--A
Day with the Purse Nets--Necessity of Silence--Ferrets
without Muzzles--How to Kill Rabbits 113
CHAPTER VIII.
Trip to the Seaside--Surveying the Hunting Ground--A View
from the Cliffs--A Sea View--The Rector's Daughter--Doctoring
the Burrows--Running out Nets--"Hie in, Good Dogs" 130
CHAPTER IX.
The Beginning of a Storm--A Ship in Distress--The Village
Harbour--A Fisherman's Home--Little Jack, the Cripple--
Waiting for the Boats--A Rough Old Fish-Wife--The Return
of the Fishermen 147
CHAPTER X.
The Rector's Story--A Ship in Danger Running Straight on the
Rocks--To the Rescue--Watching the Boat--Breaking up of the
Ship--Beyond the Storms of Life--Life in the Little One--
Nature's Gifts--What a Hodge-Podge 165
INTRODUCTION.
ADDRESSED TO ALL SCHOOLBOYS.
Ever since I was a boy, and ah! long, long before that, I fancy, the one
great anxiety of parents of the upper and middle classes blessed with
large families has been, "What are we to do with our boys?" and the cry
goes on increasing, being intensified by the depreciation in the value
of land, and by our distant colonies getting a little overstocked with
young gentlemen, who have been banished to them by thousands, to
struggle and strive, sink or swim, as fate wills it. At home, all
professions are full and everything has been tried; and, go where you
will, even the children of the noble may be found wrestling with those
of the middle and working classes for every piece of bread that falls in
the gutter. Nothing is _infra dig._ that brings in a shilling, and all
has been and is being tried. The sons of the great are to be found
shoulder to shoulder with "Tommy Atkins," up behind a hansom cab,
keeping shops, selling wines, horses, cigars, coals, and generally
endeavouring feebly to shoulder the son of the working man out of the
race over the ropes. Fortunately Heaven tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb, and I believe it has done so now. I believe kind Dame Nature
during the last summer has stepped in and opened out an honourable path
for many gentlemen's sons, that I think will be their salvation, and at
all events, if it does not make them all rich, will, if they only follow
it, make them most useful members of society and keep them out of
mischief and out of their mammas' snug drawing-rooms. I have followed
the path myself, and, after fifty years' tramp down it, have been forced
to abandon it owing to gout and rheumatism. I have not picked up a big
fortune at it, or become celebrated, except quite locally; but I have
had a good time and helped the world in general, and am content with my
past life.
I was the son of a worthy country parson, who in my youth proposed to me
in turn to become a judge, a bishop, a general, a Gladstone, a Nelson, a
Sir James Paget, and a ritualistic curate; but when talking to me on the
subject the good old man always said, "Mind, my boy, though I propose
these various positions for you, yet, if you have any decided preference
yourself, I will not thwart you, I will not fly in the face of nature."
For some time I thought I should rather like to be a bishop, and to this
day I think I should have made a good one; but _the_ voice spoke at
last, and my destiny was settled.
With the modest capital of five shillings given me by my father, and a
mongrel terrier, given me by a poacher who had to go into retirement for
killing a pheasant and half killing a keeper, I began my career as
a--but I had better give you one of my professional cards. Here it is--
BOB JOY,
RAT-CATCHER
_To H.R.H. The Prince of Wales,
The Nobility and Gentry._
I had a struggle at first. Rats, full-grown ones, only fetched twopence
each, and the system adopted by farmers of letting their rat-killing,
for, say, three pounds a year for a farm of 400 acres, almost broke me;
but I stuck to my profession, and do not regret having done so.
In those days, and during all my active life, I have had to work to
live, owing to the constant scarcity of rats; but if I managed to make a
living then, what might not be done now, when Nature has sent the rat to
our homesteads by thousands, and farmers and others are being eaten off
the face of the earth by them?
Why, my dear young friends, your fortune stares you in the face, and you
have only to stretch out your hand and grasp it--no! I have made a
mistake: you have a little more to do--you have, first, to learn your
profession, which is no easy matter; and to enable you to do this, I
intend writing the following book for the use of schools (which I
herewith dedicate to the Head Masters of Eton, Harrow, Westminster,
Rugby, and all other schools); but in placing this book on your
school-desk, allow me to say that it is no good having it there through
the long school hours unless you open it, read it, and deeply ponder
over it; and more, my dear boys, let me pray that you will take it home
with you, and, casting aside your usual holiday task, study it well,
and, as far as possible, actively put in practice what I am going to try
and teach you. Some fathers may wish their sons to enter on a more
humble course of life, but this I rather doubt. However, should they do
so, it will be only so much the better for those who take it up: there
will be more room for them. Most mothers, I fear, will object to it on
the ground that rats and ferrets don't smell nice; but this objection is
not reasonable. They might as well say that the whiff of a fox on a soft
December morning as you ride to covert is not delicious!
Respect your parents, respect even their prejudices; gently point out to
your father that you are ambitious and wish for a career in which you
can distinguish yourself. Above all, respect your mother, and show your
respect by not taking ferrets or dead rats in your pockets into her
drawing-room, and by washing your hands a little between fondling them
and cuddling her. But to finish this sermon, let me point out that
though in this great profession you will be everlastingly mixed up with
dogs of all sorts, always make _them_ come to _you_, and _never go to
them_.
One last word. If in the following pages you come across a bit of
grammar or spelling calculated to make a Head Master sit up, excuse it,
and remember that I have been a rat-catcher all my life, and as a class
we are not quite A1 at book learning.
[Illustration]
STUDIES IN RAT CATCHING FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS.
CHAPTER I.
In the following elementary treatise for the use of public schools, I
propose following exactly the same plan as my parson (a good fellow not
afraid of a ferret or a rat) does with his sermons--that is, divide it
into different heads, and then jumble up all the heads with the body,
till it becomes as difficult to follow as a rat's hole in a soft bank;
and, to begin with, I am going to talk about ferrets, for without them
rat-catching won't pay.
Where ferrets first came from I am not sure, but somewhere I have read
that they were imported from Morocco, and that they are not natives of
Great Britain any more than the ordinary rat is. If they were imported,
then that importer ranks in my mind with, but before, Christopher
Columbus and all such travellers. Anyhow it is quite clear that nowhere
in Great Britain are there wild ferrets, for they are as distinct from
the stoat, the mouse-hunter, the pole-cat, etc., as I am from a Red
Indian; and yet all belong to the same family, so much so that I have
known of a marriage taking place between the ferret and pole-cat, the
offspring of which have again married ferrets and in their turn have
multiplied and increased, which is a proof that they are not mules, for
the children of mules, either in birds or beasts, do not have young
ones.
There are two distinct colours in ferrets--one is a rich dark brown and
tan, and the other white with pink eyes; and in my opinion one is just
as good as the other for work, though by preference I always keep the
white ferret, as it is sooner seen if it comes out of a hole and works
away down a fence or ditch bottom. I have never known a dark-coloured
ferret coming among a litter of white ones or a white among the dark;
but there is a cross between the two which produces a grizzly beast,
generally bigger than its mother, which I have for many years avoided,
though it is much thought of in some parts of the Midlands. I fancy
(though I may be wrong) that the cross is a dull slow ferret, wanting in
dash and courage, and not so friendly and affectionate as the others,
and therefore apt to stick with just its nose out of a hole so that you
can't pick it up, or else it will "lay up" and give a lot of trouble
digging it out.
For rat-catching the female ferret should always be used, as it is not
half the size of the male, and can therefore follow a rat faster and
better in narrow holes; in fact, an ordinary female ferret should be
able to follow a full-grown rat anywhere. The male ferret should be kept
entirely for rabbiting, as he has not to follow down small holes, and
being stronger than the female can stand the rough knocking about he
often gets from a rabbit better than his wife can.
In buying a ferret for work, get one from nine to fifteen months old, as
young ferrets I find usually have more courage and dash than an old one.
They have not been so often punished and therefore do not think
discretion the better part of valour. However this will not be found to
be an invariable rule. I have known old ferrets that would have faced a
lion and seemed to care nothing about being badly bitten; whereas I have
known a young ferret turn out good-for-nothing from having one sharp nip
from a rat. Such beasts had better be parted with, for a bad, slow, or
cowardly ferret is vexation of spirit and not profitable.
If I am buying brown ferrets I always pick the darkest, as I fancy they
have most dash. This may be only fancy, or it may be the original ferret
was white and that the brown is the cross between it and the polecat,
and that therefore the darker the ferret, the more like it is in temper
as well as colour to its big, strong, wild ancestor. Anyhow I buy the
dark ones.
If I am buying female ferrets, I like big _long_ ones, as a small ferret
has not weight enough to tackle a big rat, and therefore often gets
desperately punished. I like to see the ferrets in a tub, end up,
looking well nourished and strong; and directly I touch the tub I like
to see them dash out of their hidden beds in the straw and rush to
spring up the sides like a lot of furies. When I put my hand in to take
one, I prefer not to be bitten; but yet I have often known a ferret turn
out very well that has begun by making its teeth meet through my finger.
When I have the ferret in hand, I first look at its tail and then at its
feet, and if these are clean it will do. If, on the other hand, I find a
thin appearance about the hairs of its tail and a black-looking dust at
the roots, the ferret goes back into the tub; or if the underside of the
feet are black and the claws encrusted with dirt, I will have nothing to
say to it, as it has the mange and will be troublesome to cure. All this
done, I put the ferret on the ground and keep picking it up and letting
it go; if when I do this it sets up the hairs of its tail, arches its
back and hisses at me, I may buy it; but I know, if I do, I shall have
to handle it much to get it tame. If, on the other hand, when I play
with it the ferret begins to dance sideways and play, I pay down my
money and take it at once, for I have never known a playful ferret to
prove a bad one.
If when you get the ferret it is wild and savage, it should be
constantly handled till it is quite tamed before it is used. Little
brothers and sisters will be found useful at this. Give them the ferret
to play with in an empty or nearly empty barn or shed where it cannot
escape. Put into the shed with them some long drain pipes, and tell them
to ferret rats out of them. The chances are they will put the ferret
through them and pick it up so often, that it will learn there is
nothing to fear when it comes out of a real rat's hole, and will ever
after "come to hand" readily. You had better not be in the way when the
children return to their mother or nurse. I have had disagreeable
moments on such occasions.
Having got all your ferrets, the next question is how to keep them. I
have tried scores of different houses for them. I have kept them in a
big roomy shed, in tubs, in boxes, and in pits in the ground; but now I
always use a box with three compartments. The left-hand compartment
should be the smallest and filled with wheat-straw well packed in, with
a small round hole a little way up the division, for the ferrets to use
as a door. The middle compartment should be empty and have the floor and
front made of wire netting, to allow light, ventilation and drainage.
The third compartment should be entered from the middle one by a hole in
the division, but should have a strong tin tray fitting over the floor
of it covered with sand, which can be drawn out and cleaned; the front
of this compartment, too, should be wire netting. The sand tray should
be removed and cleaned every day, even Sundays. The house should stand
on legs about a foot high. Each compartment should have a separate lid,
and the little entrance holes through the divisions should have a slide
to shut them, so that any one division can be opened without all the
ferrets rushing out. The bed should be changed once a week. Such a box
as I have shown is large enough for ten ferrets. For a mother with a
family a much smaller box will suffice, but it should be made on the
same plan. For bedding use only wheat-straw. Either barley-straw or hay
will give ferrets mange in a few days.
After housing the ferrets, they will require feeding. I have always
given my ferrets bread and milk once or twice a week, which was placed
in flat tins in the middle compartment; but care should be taken to
clean out the tins each time, as any old sour milk in them will turn the
fresh milk and make the ferrets ill. The natural food of ferrets is
flesh--the flesh of small animals--and therefore it should be the chief
food given. Small birds, rats and mice are to them dainty morsels, but
the ferrets will be sure to drag these into their beds to eat and will
leave the skins untouched; these should be removed each day. When my
ferrets are not in regular work they are fed just before sunset; if they
are fed in the morning they are no good for work all day, and one can
never tell (except on Sundays) that one of the dogs may not find a rat
that _wants_ killing. The day before real work, I give the ferrets bread
and milk in the morning, and nothing on the day they go out until their
work is over. This makes them keen. Remember ferrets work hard in a big
day's ratting, and therefore should be well nourished and strong; a
ferret that is not will not have the courage to face a rat.
I have listened to all sorts of theories from old hands about feeding
ferrets, but have followed the advice of few. For instance, I have been
told that if you give flesh, such as rats and birds, to a ferret that
has young ones, it will drag it into the straw among the little ones,
who will get the blood on them, and then the mother will eat them by
mistake. All I can say is, I have reared hundreds of young ferrets and
have always given the mothers flesh. It is true that ferrets will eat
their young, and the way to bring this about is to disturb the babies in
the nest. If you leave them quite alone till they begin to creep about I
believe there is no danger.
Then many old rat-catchers never give a ferret a rat with its tail on,
as they believe there is poison in it. I remember one old fellow saying
to me as he cut off the tail before putting the rat into the ferrets'
box, "Bar the tail--I allus bars the tail--there's wenom in the tail."
There may be "wenom" in it; but, if there is, it won't hurt the ferrets,
for they never eat it or the skin.
If ferrets are properly cared for they are rarely ill, and the only
trouble I have ever had is with mange, which, as I have said before,
attacks the tail and feet. Most rat-catchers keep a bottle of spirits of
tar, with which they dress the affected parts. It cures the mange, but,
by the way the poor little beasts hop about after being dressed, I fear
it stings dreadfully. I have always used sulphur and lard, and after
rubbing it well in a few times I have always found it worked a cure. The
_objection_ to sulphur and lard is that it does not hurt, for I have
noticed that sort of man generally prefers using a remedy that hurts a
lot--that is, where the patient is not himself, but an animal.
No big day's ratting ever takes place without a ferret getting badly
bitten. When this is so, the ferret should never be used again until it
is quite well. It should be sent home and put in a quiet box, apart from
the others, and the bites gently touched with a little sweet oil from
time to time; or, if it festers much, it should be sponged with warm
water.
I have often had ferrets die of their wounds, and these have usually
been the best I had. Again, with wounds the old rat-catcher uses the
tar-bottle, chiefly, I think, because it hurts the ferret, and therefore
must have "a power of wirtue."
Before going further I should point out to all students of this
ennobling profession that the very first thing they have to learn is to
pick up a ferret. Don't grab it by its tail, or hold it by its head as
you would a mad bull-dog; but take hold of it lightly round the
shoulders, with its front legs falling gracefully out below from between
your fingers. Then when you go to the box for your ferrets, and they
come clambering up the side like a pack of hungry wolves, put your hand
straight in among them without a glove, and pick up which one you
require. Don't hesitate a moment. Don't dangle your hand over their
heads till you can make a dash and catch one. The ferrets will only
think your hand is their supper coming and will grab it, with no ill
intent; but if you put it down steadily and slowly, they will soon learn
you only do so to take them out, and your hand will become as welcome to
them as flowers in spring.
True, at first, with strange ferrets you may be bitten; but it is not a
very serious thing if you are, as ferrets' bites are never venomous, as
the bites of rats often are. I have in my time been bitten by ferrets
many dozens of times and have never suffered any ill effects. There, I
think that is enough for your first lesson, so I will send it off at
once and get it printed for you.