Vol i906 In ] Notes and News - 359 



of a Britisher. Well, if we must kill something, let us go out and kill cats. 

 I do not mean our hearth-rug pets, but wild domestic cats in the bush. 

 It would be keen sport hunting cats with rifle and dogs — if not too rough 

 on dogs, judging by the size and spitefulness of some of the ' Toms ' I have 

 encountered. As is done in the case of foxes and wild dogs, let rewards be 

 paid for cat-scalps. 



"This suggests the ways and means — the only reasonable course begin 

 that of a cat-tax. A collection of, say, one shilling per annum from owners 

 of tame domestic cats would yield a sufficient fund to combat and keep in 

 check the wild-cat nuisance in the country, and thus give our beloved birds 

 a chance for existence. 



"These few hasty thoughts are offered in order to create discussion on a 

 subject which has been uppermost in my mind for some years regarding 

 bird protection. Undoubtedly, if many of our highly interesting and 

 beautiful birds, especially ground-loving species, are to be preserved from 

 total extinction, we must, as a bird-lover's union, at no distant date face 

 squarely a wild-cat destruction scheme." 



In this country the licensing of cats, or a cat tax, with responsibility on 

 the part, of the owners of cats for their acts, and also for their welfare, has 

 already become a public question, in respect to which decisive action can- 

 not be taken too quickly. The extent of the destruction of young birds 

 by even the pet cats of the household in country and suburban districts 

 is appalling. A friend of both birds and cats has informed us of his method 

 of lessening the evil; viz., to keep a close watch for the young birds as they 

 leave their nests in his grounds, and gather up the helpless fledglings and 

 place them in deep baskets and suspend the baskets from the lower branches 

 of trees, where, inaccessible to cats, the old birds will continue to care for 

 them, and when the young birds are strong enough to get out of the basket 

 they are fairly well prepared to keep out of the reach of cats. 



A new bird book, 'The Birds of Washington,' by William Leon Dawson, 

 assisted by J. H. Bowles, is announced by the Occidental Publishing Com- 

 pany of Seattle, Wash., to appear December 1, 1907. The work will be 

 in two volumes, and issued in several editions, varying in price according 

 to the binding. It is announced to be "a complete, popular and scientific 

 treatise on the birds of the State of Washington," and to contain "concise 

 and accurate descriptions of plumages, nesting, range, etc., based so far 

 as possible upon an original study of Washington material." 



A work on the ' Nesting Ways of North American Birds ' is in preparation 

 by the Rev. P. B. Peabody, of Newcastle, Wyoming. From a letter by 

 the compiler to 'The Condor' (May-June, 1906, pp. 78, 79), we quote as 

 follows: "The scope of the work is the whole field of nesting habits, save 

 for considerations of shapes, colors, sizes and textures of eggs; this portion 

 of the field being already fairly well covered. Everything available in 



