202 WITH THE U. S. NATURALISTS 



ble, so that he should not give the alarm to the foe. 

 But he searched in vain. There was no sign of a 

 squirrel in the trees nor of a snake on bough or 

 on the ground. Yet there was no doubt of the 

 danger, for the parent birds were crying their 

 fear-call sharply and continuously. 



Then, round the corner of a bush, came the mis- 

 creant, with green eyes full of cruelty and greed, 

 its sharp claws half -extended, stealing upon the 

 Thrush's nest and the four young birds. 



It was a big tom-cat. 



Shan remembered that he had read of the terri- 

 ble destruction of birds by cats. Dr. Fisher, an 

 expert of the Biological Survey, estimated that, 

 in New York State alone, stray house cats kill 

 three and a half million birds yearly; the cats of 

 Illinois kill over two and a half million, the cats 

 of Massachusetts, at least a million. 



None the less, Shan doubted this. Like many 

 people, he had a vague idea that cats lived prin- 

 cipally on rats and mice. He did not know what 

 investigation has proved to be true, namely, that 

 not one cat in a hundred will catch rats and not 

 more than one cat out of ten is a mouser, unless, 

 of course, in a state of actual starvation. 



So Shan watched the cat. 



