54 



of chasing hens out of the yard, in which sport it was encour- 

 aged by its owner. Soon it began to kill them, and no one was 

 able to stop it. Mr. Geo. W. Piper of Andover relates that he 

 heard a hen squawking when he came home one night at 9 o'clock. 

 He went into the barnyard and saw a cat killing a hen. The 

 next night he lay in wait for it and shot it as it came back. 

 Mr. Harold K. Decker of West New Brighton, X. Y., says that 

 two hens were killed at night and several others wounded by a 

 cat belonging to Mr. C. M. Smith of Westerleigh. This cat got 

 into the coop at one of the small doors, which had been inad- 

 vertently left open. Once a tomcat owned by a neighbor got 

 in through Mr. Decker's henhouse window, attacked a cock, tore 

 out much of his plumage, and mangled the bird severely, but the 

 noise of the struggle roused the household and Mr. Decker got 

 out in time to save the rooster. Miss Agnes C. Eames of Wil- 

 mington says that a townsman saw his cat leap upon one of his 

 own hens, seize it by the back of the neck and kill it. It was 

 given no opportunity to kill another. Mr. L. H. Howe of New- 

 ton tells of a cat that killed a hen and brought it home. Mr. 

 Clarence E. Richardson of Attleboro, while trapping, came upon 

 a cat eating a full-grown fowl, freshly killed. When it saw him, 

 it started to carry off the hen, but he interrupted the proceeding 

 at that point. Mr. William Dutcher of Plainfield, N. J., presi- 

 dent of the National Association of Audubon Societies, says 

 that he has known a cat to kill a full-grown fowl, and Mr. Albert 

 E. Shedd of Sharon says that a friend reported the killing of a 

 large Brahma fowl by a 15-pound cat in Providence, R. I. Mr. 

 Perkins R. Livermore of Marshfield Hills writes: "Some years 

 ago I had a henhouse up back on my place near the woods. I 

 found that something was killing my hens. I set a steel trap 

 and caught a big woods cat. He had killed fifteen hens during 

 a period of two or three weeks." The catching of the cat ended 

 the killing of the fowls. If the above statements from reputable 

 witnesses approximate the facts, the larger vagrant or woods cat 

 may yet become as great a menace to the poultry industry as the 

 fox. Possibly many cases where fox or skunk have been blamed 

 might have been traced to the cat. Cats are large and strong 

 enough to kill full-grown fowls with ease. The larger cats are much 

 heavier than the ordinary fox, and it is well known that skunks, 

 minks, weasels and even rats have killed many fowls at night. 



It is only just to the cat to say that many cats which catch 

 rats, but not chickens, are very useful in destroying rats about 

 henhouses, and that rats are sometimes fully as destructive to 

 chickens as are untrained cats. 



