The Domestic Cat 



Bird Killer, Mouser and Destroyer of Wild Life, 

 Means of Utilizing and Controlling it. 



Editor's Note: — Mr. Edward Howe Forbush, State Ornithologist of 

 Massachusetts, recently issued a Bulletin of The State Board of Agriculture 

 under the above title. The Editor asked Mr. Forbush to furnish an article 

 for The Review on the subject of the cat and was given permission to utilize 

 excerpts from the bulletin so as to save Mr. Forbush unnecessary expenditure 

 of additional time. 



Number of Cats. — "In setting forth the effect of the feeding 

 habits of the cat, it is essential first to give the reading public 

 an adequate idea of the numbers and prevalence of cats, not only 

 throughout cities, towns and villages of New England, but on 

 farms and in forests as well, as no one who has not investigated 

 the subject has any idea of their ubiquity. Hundreds roam 

 about the country towns. On the early snows of winter their 

 tracks may be found on nearly every farm in the land. There 

 is no forest or woodland so remote that the cats have not pene- 

 trated. In 191 2 I visited the Maine woods in December, and 

 there, in the snow, miles from any human dwelling, were more 

 tracks of cats than of any other creature.* 



Great Numbers of Vagrant Cats in Cities. — "It is a well-known 

 fact that cities are overrun by vagrant cats, many of them hungry 

 and cold in winter, finding a precarious living by catching mice 

 and rats and visiting "dumps" and garbage cans. Many are 

 fleabitten, mangy and diseased, and the suffering among them 

 must be great. All such cats should be executed, as a measure 

 of humanity and public safety. Humane societies have under- 

 taken this task in Boston, New York and other cities. The 



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