There are many ingenious contrivances for trapping vermin, the following from the "Gardening Illustrated" will add one more to the useful list:

" Take two common bricks, place them on their narrowest sides 4 1/2 inches apart, say by the side of a row of peas, having previously levelled the ground. Cut a piece of stiff wire about 3 1/2 inches long, on this thread a pea, bean, or any bait you choose, lean one brick in a slanting position towards the other, supported by the wire from about the center of one brick to the other; the slightest touch from a mouse and the slanting brick will immediately fall, and, I think, poor mouse will die instantaneously. I have frequently set over night four of these traps, and caught three mice in the morning. Birds never interfere with my traps."