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.