Problems Confronting Beginners 251 



ject, should first obtain from the Biological De- 

 partment of Clark University a copy of The 

 Cat and the Transmission of Disease, by Dr. C. 

 A. Osborne. If they wish to go still farther, they 

 will find in the back of Dr. Osborne's pamphlet, 

 a list of thirty-two other books and pamphlets 

 bearing more or less on this very important 

 matter. 



But after all, it would seem that the best and 

 fairest solution of the cat problem lay in a 

 reasonable tax, similar to that levied upon the 

 owners of dogs. If there were a tax of say one 

 dollar for each male cat and five dollars for each 

 female, hundreds of thousands of birds would be 

 saved, the sufferings of innumerable homeless 

 cats would be prevented, and without injury 

 to anyone. Granting that it is necessary for 

 some people to keep one or more cats as a check 

 upon the rats and mice, surely any real necessity 

 is worth one dollar a year — the proposed tax 

 on a male cat, which is said to be more than the 

 equal of the female as a destroyer of rodents. 

 The result of such a tax would be that every 

 person who really needed a cat would be able to 

 keep one for a nominal fee, but that when such 

 a fee was required, few people would keep more 

 cats than were necessary. It would undoubtedly 

 result in a great reduction in the number of 



