An excellent book to fill your idle moments with amazement and awe! Filled with incredible details drawn from twenty-five years in the career of Ike Matthews, a professional rat-catcher around the Manchester area up until the book's publication in 1898.

There is much here about the habits of rats, musings on the best ways of topping them, about working with dogs and ferrets, and also an interesting little addendum about rabbit shooting.

I'll let one of Matthews' many breath-taking anecdotes speak for itself:

"Another rat habit may be noticed where the Rodents are accustomed to have their holes and runs among flags and stones. If they find any soft wood such as pine or white deal, they will nibble at it until it is eaten through. I have often known them to eat right through the legs of tables in the middle of cooking kitchens. This, I think, they do simply to keep their teeth clean and in order …"

Fascinating stuff, though maybe not one for the wilting wilmas among us …

63pp softback facsimile of a book first published in 1898.