Pests come in all shapes and sizes. Some are plant based such as weeds, some are insects and some are animals. Each needs a different approach to managing them. Indeed there are many approaches to pest control within each category, such as organic versus chemical control in agriculture.
Pests can by their very name bring all kinds of unwanted problems. Disease carriers such as rats have been subject to control for centuries. Rat catching was at one time a common profession but is now rarely seen, although some parts of India still sees professional rat catchers at work. In Europe the control of rats was paramount in the control of disease such as the Black Death. The most famous rat catcher was a Victorian gentleman by the name of Jack Black, who was appointed by Queen Victoria as royal rat catcher. His job wasn’t without risk when a bite from a rat caused him to contact a disease that nearly killed him. Blacks main weapon in the control of vermin was his black and tan terrier called Billy. Such was the fame of his dog that Black bred from his terrier and the Austrian Ambassador to Britain bought one. Rats are loath to appear in the open and spend much of their time in holes or inside haystacks for example. The nimble terrier is well equipped to access the rats’ hiding place and the dogs natural temperament is suited to hunting out it’s quarry.
There are of course other methods of rat caching including poison and trapping. The art of the rat catcher has also passed into myth via the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin and this event is celebrated on Ratcatcher’s Day on 26th June (a confusion of the date also leads to the same celebration on 22nd July.) The town of Hamelin where the event is said to have taken place uses 26th June. Here the rat catcher tempted the rats away by playing a tune on his pipe, and failing to secure payment from the townsfolk for his services, duly led their children away by the same means.
In Victorian times it was also common for kitchens to be infested with insects. An unusual (but documented) way of dealing with this was to catch a hedgehog, which was let loose in the kitchen to eat the beetles. Cats were also kept by many households as rodent killers, these were working cats, not the pampered house cats more commonly found today and often lived in barns and outbuildings. Food was not put down for them as they were expected to catch it themselves!
We have a selection of mice, cats and dogs on our web shop in both 1:12th and 1:24th scale.