Recreations in natural history; or, popular sketches of British quadrupeds: describing their nature, habits, and dispositions, and interspersed with original anecdotes / Embellished with numerous engravings and wood cuts, from portraits of living animals, painted by the first masters.

Date:
1815
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Recreations in natural history; or, popular sketches of British quadrupeds: describing their nature, habits, and dispositions, and interspersed with original anecdotes / Embellished with numerous engravings and wood cuts, from portraits of living animals, painted by the first masters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    427/438 (page 401)
    These little depredators may be destroyed in houses by the common traps, baited with cheese: in barns, it will be neces¬ sary to allure them by means of singed leather, grease, or other animal food; and, in chambers where cheese is preserved, with inalt-meaL The following method, however, is perhaps the best: take a few handfuls of wheaten flour, or malt-meal, knead it into a dough, and let it grow sour in a warm place; then mix with it finely levigated iron filings, form the whole into small balls, and put them into the holes frequented by mice. On eating this preparation, they are inevitably killed. The mouse is very ingenious in constructing its nest, and has sometimes made its little habitation of the most expensive materials. In the course of January 1814, Mr. Thomas Lang, a respectable blanket manufacturer of Littletown, deposited, in a drawer in his desk, two bills of exchange of the value of upwards of <£l0. Mrs. Lang, having occasion to refer to the bills, went to the drawer; but, to her great consternation, no bills were to be found. Every article in the desk was turned over, and the search was continued until midnight without effect, and resumed next morning with no better success. When all hopes of finding the lost property had vanished, a neighbour came in, and, having heard of the story of the loss, removed the desk; and on the back of it a small aperture was discovered. On continuing the search, a similar hole was found in the floor; and, upon removing the flags, a mouse’s nest was discovered, in which were the lost notes, almost reduced to their original rags, and which the mouse, with great ingenuity, had converted into a very comfortable lining for its nest; but, fortunately, the