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.