safe keeping; there is no humanity in allowing great numbers of deserted stray 

 cats to wander about, half starved, half wild, hunters of birds. 



Cats destroy millions of native birds in this country every year. Well 

 known authorities agree that cats kill more birds than are killed by all other 

 animals combined. Native birds are absolutely necessary to us as destroyers of 

 insect life. A yellow throated warbler will consume 10,000 tree lice in one day; 

 a scarlet tanager has been watched closely and seen to devour gypsy moths at 

 the rate of 35 a minute for 18 minutes at a time. I found 2,000 mosquitoes and 

 many house flies, beetles, and other insects in the stomach of one purple martin 

 which was killed on my place. Men who have given their lives to the study of 

 this subject claim that we could not live if it were not for the birds — the insects 

 would destroy vegetation. Insects now cost this country — by their destruction 

 of fruit and grains— between $400,000,000 and $800,000,000 a year. 



And cats are allowed to prey upon our greatest defenders — native birds. 

 Our sentimental blindness favoring the cat is in reality multiplying insect life 

 beyond the power of our calculation. By sparing the cat we are murdering 

 millions of birds every year and giving life to hordes of insects. 



It is bad to lose your birds by the secret hunting trips of your own cat. It 

 is even worse, as many of us have discovered, to lose birds by the energy of 

 our neighbor's cats. 



Birds and cats cannot live together. The birds are frightened by the mere 

 presence of a cat. They prefer to have their houses placed far away from the 

 home or haunt of a cat. And even if the birds do come to live at a place where 

 a cat is kept, those birds are in constant danger of death. 



If only you will give the birds a chance — have them about you one summer 

 — I know you will gladly let the cat go, and will never regret it. I have used, 

 and have let my friends use, a cat trap. 



This trap is baited and set back in the shrubbery out of sight and no one 

 is the wiser for it, and no hard feelings from my neighbors, who have been 

 notified to keep their cats out of my grounds or take the consequences. These 

 bird fiends which I caught — ^more than a score altogether — I have buried under 

 my rose bushes, grape vines, and fruit trees, and such beautiful roses and luscious 

 fruits, their equal cannot be found anywhere in this neighborhood. 



I was forced to do this by the cats which came secretly hunting my birds. 

 Imagine my feelings when on some bright morning of early summer I hear a 

 great twittering among my wrens, and looking closely about, discover feathers, a 

 few drops of blood, and the footprints of a cat! I am not cruel. I have lived 

 among my birds too long for that. But I could not be true to them if I did not 

 protect them from the stealthy hunter — well fed from my neighbor's table — the 

 cat that kills for the inborn lust of killing. 



If you really love birds you will not let the cats get them — either your own 

 cat or those from other houses. 



Probably if you have a cat and if you love birds, too, you are like many peo- 

 ple I know — you think I must be exaggerating the evils ways of Pussy. I chal- 



333 



