182 CONSERVATION OP CANADIAN WILD LIFE 



were killed. If we assume, however, that the average cat on the farm 

 kills but ten birds per year and that there is one cat to every farm in 

 Massachusetts, we have in round numbers, seventy thousand cats killing 

 seven hundred thousand birds annually. 



The average taken by Forbush, of ten birds to each cat, 

 is a low one, as every observer will agree, and his figures for 

 a single State, however striking they may appear, are only 

 too near the truth. If we are to preserve our birds we must 

 take steps to destroy all stray cats, and to reduce the num- 

 ber of cats to a minimum. Birds form a natural part of 

 our wild life, cats do not; they form a destructive factor 

 that has been introduced into the natural order of things 

 by man, and in a state of nature an abundance of cats and 

 birds is an impossibility. 



In city parks and other places in which it is desired to 

 encourage and protect birds, it is necessary that care should 

 be exercised to prevent the undue multiphcation of red 

 squirrels, which frequently prove to be serious destroyers of 

 bird life. Further, they often appropriate nesting-boxes 

 and turn them into storage places for their food supplies. 



In the neighbourhood of dwellings the house-sparrow is 

 generally an enemy to our native birds. In many places 

 these sparrows have driven away the useful insectivorous 

 birds, particularly those of the swallow tribe. While they 

 feed, to some extent, upon insects during the season when 

 they are raising their broods of young, and on the seeds of 

 weeds when other food is not available, they are, on the 

 whole, very undesirable, and every effort should be made 

 to destroy them. They are seriously destructive to young 

 plants, especially garden vegetables such as peas; in coun- 

 try districts they destroy and spoil large quantities of grain, 

 and their habits are such as to earn for them the title of 

 "avian rats." The best methods of destruction are shoot- 

 ing, the taking of their nests and eggs, and the use of poisoned 

 grain. 



