36 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



A Chapter of the Agassiz Association. (Incorporated 1892 and 1910.) The Law of Love, Not the Love of Law 



The Problem of the Cat. A Great De- 

 stroyer of Useful birds. Preven- 

 tive Measures. 



CY HERBERT K. JOB, STATE ORNITHOLO- 

 GIST, WEST HAVEN, CONN. 



On a wild tract of land in Connec- 

 ticut used as a game preserve, remote 

 from any town or village, during" the 

 first year and a half of its recent opera- 

 tion the keeper in charge killed forty 

 roving cats, and during the next year 

 two dozen more. Alan)' of these were 

 evidently homeless, having relapsed 

 into the condition of wild animals. 

 Others were house-cats, accustomed to 

 roam, mostly by night, miles from their 

 homes. All were preying on birds and 

 wild game. This is no exceptional 

 case, but typical of what goes on every- 

 where. 



People often wonder why our song 

 and insectivorous birds which are pro- 

 tected by law do not increase. The 

 real wonder is that they have not long 

 since been exterminated, with an army 

 of hunting felines, especially in the 

 vicinity of towns, roaming everywhere 

 in the breeding season, searching for 

 nests and young birds. If the nest is 

 on the ground or anywhere that a cat 

 can climb, the case is almost hopeless. 

 Even if out of reach, the young when 

 learning to fly are almost sure to flut- 

 ter down and get caught. If one will 

 look around near home, he will often 

 find emoty nests which have been rob- 

 bed of eggs or young. 



The cat is a born hunter, and nearly 

 all of them hunt for wild game, even 

 though their owners do not suspect it. 

 It is a very moderate estimate to as- 



sume that each cat, on the average, 

 slays one bird a week, say fifty each 

 year. Think of the countless thousands 

 of useful birds thus killed in the United 

 States every year ! 



In most parts of Europe birds are 

 said to be much more abundant than 

 with us, though they are shot and trap- 

 ped much more freely- A well-known 

 naturalist who has travelled much in 

 those countries considers this due in 

 considerable measure to the compara- 

 tive absence of cats. It seems to him 

 a local peculiarity of the American peo- 

 ple to tolerate in their homes numbers 

 of these half-wild animals, a queer, 

 abnormal fad. In Europe the posses- 

 sion of cats is said to be regulated by 

 law. 



A common barbarity is the practice 

 of abandoning cats by peoole changing 

 their residence, leaving them to sut- 

 fer and to prey upon society. In pity 

 I have taken in these homeless starv- 

 ing creatures and fed them. At one 

 shore resort in Connecticut I have been 

 told that there are from fifty to one 

 hundred homeless cats, abandoned by 

 summer cottagers, eking out a wretch- 

 ed existence around the piers. 



With us the cat has no standing in 

 law, and is not recognized as orouerty. 

 No one can obtain redress if his cats 

 are poisoned or shot. Yet even this 

 permission to kill does not abate the 

 nuisance. Alike from the standpoint 

 of kindness to animals, of the owner 

 of the cat, and of the lover of birds, 

 is it not high time that this matter 

 should be regulated by law, — how 

 manv and what sort of cats one mav 



