150 BIRD FRIENDS 



Cornelia T. Fairbanks, of St. Johnsbury, Ver- 

 mont : 



We have solved the question of how to control our 

 family cat. His days are spent under the south piazza, 

 where he sits contentedly looking out through the netting 

 in front, or curls up in a box in a shady corner. After 

 the birds are quiet for the night, he is released. The good 

 supper that awaits him at nine o'clock never fails to 

 bring him to the door, where he is captured and safely 

 shut up for the night. 



Another solution of the problem is to keep the 

 cat tethered to an overhead wire during the birds' 

 nesting-season. 



As a matter of common decency no one has a 

 right to keep a cat that becomes a nuisance in kill- 

 ing birds on his neighbor's place, any more than 

 he has a right to keep cows and horses and allow 

 them to roam at will over his neighbor's garden. 

 Any one who wishes to attract birds around his 

 home in any considerable numbers must dispose of 

 the cats that trespass on his place, whether they 

 be stray cats or neighbors' cats. These can be 

 caught by means of cat-traps, a number of which 

 are now in the market, for sale by some of the deal- 

 ers listed in Chapter XIX. Nests and nesting-boxes 

 may be protected from cats by wrapping a piece 

 of tin or zinc, about eighteen inches wide, around 

 the tree or post four feet from the ground, and fas- 

 tening it there. Cats are not able to climb over this. 



