59 



Dr. C. F. Hodge, author of "Nature Study and Life," and an 

 authority on the rearing of game birds, says that evidence from 

 all civilized countries in which measures are being taken to pro- 

 tect game and insectivorous birds is overwhelming that the cat 

 is the worst enemy of bird life. Most authorities lean toward 

 this opinion. 



If opinions are to be regarded at all, those of well-known, con- 

 servative people who have made a lifelong studj'' of birds, their 

 enemies and the means of protecting them should be entitled to 

 the greatest weight, as such people, interested in the protection 

 of birds, are best qualified to express an opinion by reason of 

 long experience and habits of close observation. 



Mr. Witmer Stone of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, 

 editor of the "Auk," and for many years chairman of the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologists' Union Committee on Bird Protection, writes: 

 "There is, I think, no doubt that for years past the greatest 

 destructive agency to our smaller song and insectivorous birds 

 has been the cat." 



Robert Ridgway, of the Smithsonian Institution at Washing- 

 ton, D. C, whose monumental standard works on American 

 ornithology are known throughout the world, writing of roaming 

 cats in the locality of his home in southern Illinois, says: "It 

 is of course difficult to estimate the extent to which these prac- 

 tically wild cats are responsible for the present relative scarcity 

 of birds, but it must, from the very nature of the case, be a most 

 important factor." 



John Burroughs says that cats probably destroy more birds 

 than all other animals combined. He believes that the preserva- 

 tion of birds involves the nonpreservation of cats. 



Dr. Frank M. Chapman, of the American Museum of Natural 

 History, author of standard works on American ornithology and 

 editor of "Bird-Lore," has this to say on the subject: "The 

 most important problem confronting bird protectors to-day is the 

 devising of a proper means for the disposition of the surplus cat 

 population of this country. By surplus population we mean that 

 very large proportion of cats which do not receive the care due a 

 domesticated or pet animal, and which are, therefore, practically 

 dependent on their own efforts for food." 



Mr. Henry W. Henshaw, chief of the Biological Survey, United 

 States Department of Agriculture, says that one of the worst 

 foes of our native birds is the house cat. Probably none of our 

 native wild animals destroy as many birds on the farm, particu- 

 larly the fledglings, as do cats. 



Mr. William Dutcher, president of the National Association 



