thirteen] securing OUR ALLIES 



fat as a winter woodchuck. In another huge cage 

 is shut all summer another large, yellow cat — Li 

 Hung Chang; but I believe the birds call him The 

 Foreign Devil. You should hear the catbirds jaw 

 him; and once in a while they take advantage of his 

 captivity to perch over the cage and jeer at him. I 

 have seven or eight nests of this favorite bird, and 

 when they concentrate vituperation on any crea- 

 ture it is awful; it is probably profane. On the 

 whole, we cannot get along very well in the country 

 without pussy, although it is very difficult in bird 

 time to get on with him. For intelligence, inside 

 certain limits, the cat is certainly a very marvelous 

 creature, but he is always a relative of the tiger. 

 There are noble cats — almost honest cats, and 

 there are cats that deserve all the execration of man 

 and bird. Prof. Hodge insists that these pets of 

 ours are destroying at least nine-tenths of the most 

 beneficial birds that undertake to nest about our 

 homes. 



If I were writing for city readers, I should say, 

 try to get along without cats altogether. It will 

 never be possible to create a bird paradise into 

 which this animal may be admitted. Within a few 

 years, however, by adopting the plan I have sug- 



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