Problems Confronting Beginners 253 



seem that intelligent people everywhere, cat 

 lovers and bird lovers alike, should get together 

 and discuss this question calmly and without 

 prejudice or bitterness, and see if they cannot 

 help one another out. Of course, no cat lover 

 likes to have a favorite cat shot or trapped or 

 poisoned, and no bird lover can be happy if a cat 

 is permitted to mangle and torture the gentle 

 feathered guests who come to the garden and 

 orchard. It is unneighborly to kill one's neigh- 

 bor's cat, but just as unneighborly to permit a 

 cat to kill one's neighbor's birds. Let us be 

 neighborly and work together to devise a reason- 

 able plan whereby it may be possible to have 

 what cats are necessary with the minimum 

 danger to the birds. And let us begin at once, 

 for as Frank M. Chapman sums up the situation, 

 "The most important problem confronting bird 

 protectors to-day is the devising of proper 

 means for the disposition of the surplus cat 

 population of this country. " 



Dogs 



Dogs are seldom very destructive to birds. 

 This is due partly to the fact that they do not 

 climb, partly to the fact that their method of 

 hunting is not, as a rule, well adapted to the 



