hodge] 



NATURE-STUDY AND THE DOB WHITE 



63 



"A LITTLE MORE CAT FEED" 



mate now joins him in their care and they have reared the 

 brood of perfectly clean and healthy little fellows for three 

 weeks. The dog- takes another vacation on a cold, dewy, al- 

 most frosty night, a cat disturbs them and only three of the 

 chicks are alive next morning. The rest are found scattered 

 and chilled in the wet grass. "Perhaps it was something else", 

 yon say? The cat was caught in a trap at the corner of the 

 cage the next night. 



No one has any objection to cats, as pets properly cared for 

 and controlled; but we must face this problem fairly. We may 

 start our twenty million children to protecting and caring for 

 the birds. Under present conditions, all this effort will mean: 

 "A little more cat feed". People everywhere are asking: *' Win- 

 do we not have more birds?" or: "How can we have more 

 birds?" Forbush followed a cat for a single day and actually 

 saw her break up six birds' nests, killing all the young and two 

 of the parent birds. For a number of localities observed by the 

 writer he is convinced that cats have done more to exterminate 



