266 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Smith, chief game warden of Fairfield County, Conn., has 

 convicted an Italian of killing and eating unfledged young 

 robins. The man was seen frying young birds over a fire 

 near his shack. They were fried without removing the heads 

 or legs. Mr. Smith was shown by the Italian himself the 

 nest from which the birds were taken and four little heaps 

 of feathers where they were plucked. No one knows how 

 many nests of young birds are despoiled in this way. The 

 birds are left in the nest until they are almost ready to fly 

 and then taken and eaten, as squabs are eaten by the epicure. 



Recent Notes about the Enemies of Bikds. 

 Mr. G. K. Noble visited the Nantucket bird reservation 

 on Muskeget Island during the summer of 1913, to examine 

 nesting colonies of sea birds there. He found there, as he 

 believed, about 45,000 birds, including common, roseate and 

 arctic terns and the laughing gull. In the " Warbler " of 

 Sept. 1, 1913, he tells of the danger which menaces the birds. 

 " Thoughtless owners," he says, " have abandoned their cats 

 upon this island." Gruesome sights were soon brought to 

 his attention. Many of the birds had been killed while sit- 

 ting on their eggs and their bodies still partly concealed their 

 decaying eggs. Dead mother birds, their bodies partly eaten, 

 appeared at every step. He says that on the extreme west- 

 erly part of the island the gulls and terns have been extermi- 

 nated, and evidence of their futile attempts at nesting may 

 be seen in the white feathers and bleached bones visible on 

 all sides. As the young hatch out they also become the vic- 

 tims of the ruthless cat. It was a common sight to see dur- 

 ing* one short walk across the island at least 50 young, dead 

 or dying, with their heads cruelly lacerated and their wings 

 crushed and bleeding. It seems that the cats kill young 

 birds simply for the sport of it. Mr. G. E. Coffin, the war- 

 den, is an expert shot, and is on the lookout for the cats, but 

 the scanty vegetation on the island offers the hunter little 

 protection and gives the cats all that they need. The warden 

 killed three cats in ten days, but Mr. Noble says that at 

 least five times as many of these semi-wild cats are still left 



