lenge you to watch the cat and the birds. Leave the cat where birds are near 

 and — secretly — watch him. It may cost the hfe of a bird, but it is better that you 

 should know the truth. And after you have watched a cat's dehberate cruelty 

 in killing a bird you will not be so fond of the cat. 



There are a few cats — very few — which do not hunt birds. Most of these 

 are foreign species — Angoras, for example— or city cats which, after several 

 generations of closely confined lives, have lost the instinct to kill birds. I am 

 thoroughly confident that a little country life revives this instinct. 



Now regarding the English sparrow ; he is noisy, dirty, filthy, and quarrel- 

 some, and fights every one of our song birds. Twenty sparrows came against 

 my first three martins, and if it had not been for my assistance, and the arrange- 

 ment of my house, I certainly would have lost them. It is a fact that the spar- 

 row will carry lice from one chicken yard to another, and chicken lice live and 

 grow fat on the sparrow. The sparrow will pick up a feather in the yard to 

 aid in building its nest and as many as 180 chicken lice have been found on one 

 feather. 



The Michigan University has, after a long and thorough investigation, de- 

 cided that the sparrow carries hog cholera from one farm to another. 



Our government not only classes the sparrow as a pest, but issues a pamphlet 

 entitled. The English Sparrow as a Pest and Hoiv to Destroy It. 



Help wipe out these pests, the English sparrow and the alley cat, and pro- 

 vide our feathered friends with proper shelter, food and water and you will have 

 about your home a delightful chorus of bluebirds, wrens, purple martins, fly- 

 catchers, tree swallows, chickadees, nuthatches, and all the other native song 

 birds. - 



The Pine Grosbeak {Pinlcola enucUator Uucura) 

 By W, Leon Dawson 



Length : 8^ inches. 



Range : Northeastern and central North America. 



Food : Mostly seeds from small growth pines and weed seeds. 



Another of our rarer winter birds, whose occasional visits serve only to 

 stimulate a desire on our part for a closer acquaintance, is the Pine Grosbeak. 

 It is almost exclusively a bird of the deep pine forests, so it is not to be wondered 

 at that it so seldom ventures into our state. While found more commonly in 

 Pennsylvania and regularly in New England, it breeds only from the northern 

 portions of the latter region northward. Like many another woodland recluse, 

 the Pine Grosbeak often appears dazed when it encounters civilization and may 

 not infrequently be taken with butterfly nests or even with the hand. It is on 

 record that the markets of Boston were abundantly supplied one winter with 



334 



