THE RAT AXD THE CAT. 127 



but any creature which will kill a bird finds a 

 friend and advocate in the Eev. Mr. Morris. 

 And they will breed in our woods. Are they 

 to have a close time ? And may we thin their 

 numbers afterwards if ' inconveniently nume- 

 rous ? ' And if so how ? 



We wish to kill them in the most humane 

 way possible, though a cat six or eight hours in 

 a trap probably does not suffer so much as she 

 has made some other poor creature suffer on 

 nearly every day of her wicked life. 



Let their friends invent a trap which will 

 annihilate them the moment they touch it, or a 

 poison so delicious that they cannot resist it, 

 and so subtle that it will send them directly 

 into a sweet sound sleep, from which they will 

 never waken, and we will gladly use these 

 things. Until they do this, we will kill them as 

 best we can, because we love birds better than 

 we love them. When natural history begins to 

 be really taught in our schools, and people learn 

 to know the value of birds and the worthless 



