68 STATE POMOI.OGICAI, SOCIETY. 



goes to the botton of another tree. I have watched him half a 

 day at a time, watched him work with that Httle narrow curved 

 bill in the crevices of the bark, searching, searching, searching. 



Does it seem as though there could be any insects left to 

 develop next summer? Unfortunately there are. What is the 

 reason? These birds were intended by nature to hold insects 

 in check, but we have foolishly destroyed the birds. 



Do you want your fruit trees better protected? Then stop 

 the slaughter of birds about your orchards. Go home and kill 

 your cat. She is the greatest pest that people who raise fruit 

 have to contend with. I know of a cat owned by a man who 

 claims that fifty birds are the average number killed by that cat 

 every year. The cat does not stay in the house nights during 

 the summer. She is a tree climber, and what she can't destroy 

 during the daytime, she takes from the nest at night. Fifty 

 birds for one cat in one family ! I know another family that 

 said their cat caught fifty-nine robins in one summer. Another 

 man said his cat caught forty-eight — and those men were all 

 trying to raise fruit ! Those men were trying to raise fruit, yet 

 they were keeping cats that were doing them thousands of dol- 

 lars worth of damage every year. Review for a moment Mr. 

 Nash's experiment in feeding young robins. One young bird 

 weighing only three ounces ate 165 cutworms per day. Here 

 were 157 robins put out of existence on three farms. The 

 amount of insect food required per day by these 157 robins was 

 157 times 165, or the enormous number of 25,905 cutworms, or 

 their equivalent in other forms of insect life. What terrible 

 devastation these robins might have held in check had they been 

 permitted to live. 



Unfortunately for the orchard interests of Maine, many 

 domestic cats are left by our summer visitors to resume once 

 more their wild state. It is a pleasant thing to see puss about 

 our summer cottages, for it adds to their home-like appearance ; 

 but when our visitors return to their city homes, the cats are 

 often left behind with no means of subsistence unless they prey 

 largely upon the birds. If well fed domestic tabbies will kill 

 fifty robins, what terrible slaughter must be wrought by the hun- 

 dreds of cats that return each year to a state of nature. If you 

 hunt, shoot every cat you can find in the woods and fields. If 

 you have a boy with the collecting craze, and his mind is set 



