328 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



towards disposing of them than even a good 

 cat will do in a year.' 



In spite of the fact that the cat is not a 

 necessity, there will probably always be 

 some who wish to keep cats either as pets or as 

 mousers; but Mr. Forbush is of opinion that 

 if ownerless cats could be eliminated and 

 owned cats confined to the buildings or en- 

 closures of their owners, the cat evil would be 

 considerably lessened. 



It is not cruel to keep a cat in confinement. 

 Cats kept in buildings, or brought up in 

 narrow quarters, and well fed, are quite con- 

 tented and will then be more likely to con- 

 fine their hunting proclivities to rats and 

 mice. Good feeding alone will not keep a 

 cat from killing birds, but good feeding com- 

 bined with confinement at night will make it 

 less likely to go afield, especially if a good 

 breakfast is provided before release in the 

 morning. Ninety per cent of cats at present 

 are allowed to roam at night, thus contract- 

 ing colds and disease to infect the children 



1 Those who do not know how to get rid of mice and 

 rats are referred to Economic Biology Bulletin No. 1, 

 Rals and Ral Riddance, procured from the Massachu- 

 setts State Board of Agriculture, State House, Boston. 



and other members of the homes they visit, 

 while they destroy more birds and game than 

 rats and mice. 



Objections to proposed legislation, directed 

 toward licensing owned cats and destroying 

 vagrants, come chiefly from people who do not 

 wish to pay the tax. Many cat lovers wel- 

 come the idea as affording protection to owned 

 cats and avoiding the suffering of others. 



This admirable little booklet, which is 

 strongly recommended to the attention of 

 nature lovers and cat owners, brings the dis- 

 cussion to a close as follows; — "The claim 

 of the cat to a place in our domestic life rests 

 primarily on the fact that it is supposed to do 

 for us, with little conscious effort on our part, 

 the onerous and disagreeable task of destroy- 

 ing small rodents. Insomuch as the creature 

 fails in this, and in so far as it destroys other 

 more useful forms of life, in such measure it 

 becomes an evil and a pest. It will become 

 an influence for good or ill according as we 

 mold it, restrain it, and limit its activity. 

 It is our duty to check with a firin hand its 

 undue increase in domestication, and to elim- 

 inate the vagrant cat as we would a wolf." 



M. H. p. 



C.lirlcsy iij Massarlius.Hs Sliilr liminl nf \,irunlliir,' 

 On jMu.skeget Island a colony of gulls and terns, protected by the town of Nantucket, were almost entirely 

 killed out by a few stray cats, their only oremies. Thousands of nest sites showed only egg shells and the scattered 

 remains of parents 



