144 BIRD FRIENDS 



tions of the Biological Survey, estimates that the cats 

 of New York State destroy 3,500,000 birds annually. 



Mr. Albert H. Pratt calculates that the farm cats of 

 Illinois kill about 2,500,000 annually. 



Number of birds killed by cats in the eastern 

 United States. The average of these estimates for 

 the three States is about one hundred birds killed 

 per square mile. If this average is applied to all 

 the States east of the Mississippi River, it would 

 give a total of 85,000,000 birds killed annually by 

 cats in the eastern United States. 



We may also make a rough estimate from the 

 number of farms and families in the country. There 

 are in the United States east of the Mississippi 

 River 3,800,000 farms. If we take the conditions 

 in Massachusetts as being typical of the rest of the 

 country in averaging two cats to a farm, these farms 

 support 7,600,000 cats. On the iarm, where there 

 are excellent hunting-grounds for the cat, it is a 

 very conservative estimate that each cat averages 

 to kill ten birds in a year, making a total of 76,000,- 

 000 birds killed annually by cats on the farms of 

 the eastern United States. 



An estimate may also be made of the number of 

 birds killed by town cats. According to the census 

 of 1910, the urban population of the United States 

 east of the Mississippi River, living in towns and 

 cities of twenty-five hundred and over, was 33,- 

 500,000, comprising about 7,400,000 families. The 



