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says that he thrives and seems to regard his leash as a high 

 honor. High-bred cats kept for breeding purposes necessarily 

 are kept in confinement most of the time. 



Keeping the Cat Indoors at Night. 



Most important of all, the cat should be kept in the house or 

 some building, cage or pen at night. Cats which hunt outdoors 

 at night contract colds and diseases, and destroy more birds 

 and game and fewer house rats and mice than at any other time. 

 About 90 per cent of the cats are allowed to roam at night. 

 The mother bird is slain on her nest by the unseen marauder or 

 the young are taken when they first begin to stir at early 'dawn. 



Feeding the Cat. 



A well-fed cat must have meat, as that is the natural food of 

 the species. Probably cats that are fed meat and given water 

 are less likely to engage in an active hunt for birds and more 

 likely to stay at home and lie quietly in wait for rats and mice 

 than those that are poorly fed and have to find their own meat 

 and drink. A little milk once or twice a day is not good or 

 suflBcient food for a cat. Cat lovers tell us that if we wish our 

 cats to be good mousers we must feed them well, as they cannot 

 stand watch long on an empty stomach, but they tell us also that 

 if well fed they will not catch birds. Nevertheless, I have known 

 cats, excellent mousers and ratters, rarely fed by their owners, 

 and I have many reports of cats well fed and well cared for 

 which spent a great part of their time in hunting and killing 

 birds that they never ate. On the other hand, it may be pos- 

 sible to feed a cat so much meat that it will not hunt. The 

 owner of a fertilizer factory, where dead horses were received 

 continually, said that both rats and cats, glutted with meat, 

 fraternized about the boilers on cold winter nights, and that the 

 cats never troubled the rats; but experience goes to show that a 

 bird-killing cat, like a man-killing lion or tiger, has acquired a 

 practically incurable habit, and while overfeeding may check the 

 habit in some, it seems to have no effect on others. 



Belling the Cat. 



The experiment of putting a collar and bell on a cat to pre- 

 vent it from catching birds has been recommended by many 

 people who have never tried it and by some few who have, but 

 the most common experience seems to be that a cat which is 

 skillful enough to creep upon a bird, is expert enough to keep the 



