70 



THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE CAT. 



Economic Value of Weasels. 



The destruction of weasels must count against the cat in so 

 far as it removes from the field the most effective mammal enemy 

 of rats and mice. Weasels are ravenous, persistent slayers of 

 small rodents, and are able to follow them into all their holes 

 and hiding places; but unfortunately the food habits of the 

 weasel in this country are not well enough known to enable one 

 to speak with authority regarding its depredations on insect- 

 eating birds and other insectivorous creatures. Occasionally it 

 kills fowls and game birds, and it is regarded as vermin by the 

 farmer and gamekeeper. Probably cats do not kill many weasels 

 and their destruction need not be given much weight. 



Economic Value of Squirrels. 



The killing of squirrels by cats will be regarded by farmers 

 generally as a beneficial habit, as squirrels are destructive to 

 fruit and grain. Sometimes they destroy eggs and young birds; 

 but the cat kills mainly chipmunks, which are least destructive 

 to fruit, grain and birds, although many red squirrels and a few 

 grays are taken. Cats undoubtedly save the lives of some birds 

 by killing squirrels, but, on the other hand, they thus protect 

 many insects, probably as many as cats themselves destroy. I 

 watched a gray squirrel with a glass and saw it go thoroughly 

 over an oak tree about forty feet high, gleaning nearly all the 

 insects upon it. Mr. C. A. Lyford reports that he watched a 

 red squirrel take all the bark lice from a large section of the 

 trunk of a white pine. Mr. W. L. Burnett, Prof. C. P. Gillette 

 and Prof. J. M. Aldrich, reporting on examinations of the striped 

 ground squirrels or spermophiles, find that they eat quantities 

 of injurious insects, such as caterpillars, including cutworms and 

 webworms, grasshoppers, locusts and ground beetles. Grass- 

 hoppers seem to be preferred to all other food. Cutworms are 

 eaten in numbers.^ Mr. Walt F. McMahon informs me that 

 squirrels gnaw into the burrows of the leopard moth and extract 

 the larvae. ]\Iost insects eaten by squirrels are injurious and 

 squirrels kill and eat some mice. 



The food of New England chipmunks is believed to include 

 many injurious insects. The destruction of these little animals 

 by the cat may be at times an injury and at other times a benefit 



t Burnett, W. L.: Ciroulkn Noa. and 14, issued from the office of the State Entomologist, Fort 

 Collins, Col. 



