i8io 



The Cornell Reading-Courses 



what readiness they respond to a Httle kindness and how tame they soon 

 become. They show no fear of a person sitting by the window if the 

 window is down, and soon lose their nervousness even when it is open, 

 sometimes even feeding from one's hand. 



Care should always be exercised not to leave the window open if there 

 is a cat in the house, for the temptation to jump at the birds on the shelf 

 would be too great for any cat to resist, and that woiild do more than 

 anything else to frighten the birds and stop their coming. For the cat 



is the greatest enemy 

 of the birds. More 

 birds are destroyed 

 annually by cats, says 

 our eminent naturalist, 

 John Burroughs, than 

 by all their other 

 enemies put together. 

 E. N. Forbush, the 

 State Ornithologist of 

 ]\ I assachusetts , ' e s t i - 

 mates that in that 

 State alone cats kill 

 more than seven hun- 

 dred thousand birds 

 every year. As a result 

 the birds have come 

 instinctively to recog- 

 nize the cat as their 

 enemy, and are not 

 easily attracted nor 

 will they become tame 

 where cats are kept. 

 The stray or underfed 

 cat is of course the 

 worst, and it should be considered a crime to turn a cat adrift on the 

 neighborhood, as is often done by persons mo\'ing away or tiring of 

 caring for their pets. Pet cats should always be severely punished when- 

 ever they catch birds or break up nests, and many of them can be broken 

 of the habit. 



If one is willing to expend a little more labor in his desire to watch the 

 birds, a more elaborate form of feeding shelf is the window box. Here the 

 shelf is placed on the inside of the window and enclosed with glass, forming 

 a sort of glass box projecting into the room. This has the advantage 



Fig. 40. 



Another simple form of Jeeding shelj. 

 waiting for junco to finish 



Chickadee 



