CATCHING A RAT
Most wild creatures move along set lines, frequenting the same track, and rats have their runs as those who are troubled with them know. When I discovered a large rat crossing my garden on its way to a hen-run, it was impossible to use a trap; and since the rat was apparently well-fed, poison seemed equally out of the question. I thought about this for some time, and then memory took me back to a day when I stood by a cottage garden in a remote part of Scotland and was startled by a commotion which turned out to be the straightening of a hazel rod to which was attached, by means of a snare, a large, grey rat. It took me some time to make the bow and snare, and more than a week to get the setting right, for I found it hard to judge the height at which a rat carries its head, and the rat brushed my noose aside. A rabbit can be caught at a height of a fraction over three inches — the thickness of four fingers. At length I got my snare set as it should have been in the first place, and the rat was caught. The thing that surprised me was that the grey one continued to use his track while I experi- mented to capture him. A rabbit would. not have done this, but a rat is used to the scent of the human hand, and, indeed, he associates it with rich living.
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