THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS 99 



— for what is the use of chickens if you cannot 

 take them to the show? 



The chickens began to hatch, little downy balls 

 of yellow, with their pedigrees showing right 

 through the fuzz. How the sixty of them grew ! 

 I never lost one. And now the second batch of 

 sitters would soon be ready to come off. 



Then one day, at the morning count, five of 

 one hen's brood were gone ! I counted again. I 

 counted all the other broods. Five were gone ! 



My nearest neighbor had cats, mere barn cats, 

 as many as ten, at the least. I had been suspicious 

 of those cats from the first. So I got a gun. Then 

 more of my chickens disappeared. I could count 

 only forty-seven. 



I shifted the coop, wired it in, and stretched a 

 wire net over the top of the run. Nothing could 

 get in, nor could a chicken get out. All the time 

 I was waiting for the cat. 



A few nights after the moving of the coop a 

 big hole was dug under the wire fence of the run, 

 another hole under the coop, and the entire brood 

 of Rhode Island Reds was taken. 



Then I took the gun and cut across the pas- 

 ture to my neighbor's. 



