Part 2
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."
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.