No. 4.] REPORT OF STATE ORNITHOLOGIST. 267 



on the island. If these eats be not exterminated they prob- 

 ably will increase and exterminate the birds, as that has 

 been the result wherever cats have been liberated upon sea 

 islands. 



To PROTECT BiBDS AGAINST CaTS. 



The Dundee (Scotland) " Advertiser " states that cats 

 are terrible poachers and destroy numerous young birds, and 

 the French ISTational Society of Acclimatization has taken 

 up this cause of the destruction of game and birds, and has 

 tried to find a remedy for it. The society now informs us in 

 its Bulletin, says the Advertiser, that in order to keep the 

 cats away from a bird's nest we have only to place a cloth 

 or rag saturated with " animal empyreumatic oil " in the 

 bush or on the trunk of the tree" where the nest is situated. 

 Cats have an invincible repulsion for the smell of this oil. 

 One correspondent having caught a mouse in a trap rubbed it 

 over with empyreumatic oil and then let it go in the presence 

 of his cat. The cat took no notice of the mouse. Whether 

 the odor had been caught by the other mice in the house, or 

 whether the cat kept a disagreeable reminder of the experi- 

 ence, he absolutely gave up chasing the mice which swarmed 

 in the house. This method may be worth a trial in Massa- 

 chusetts. 



Mr. J. W. Barber gives the following suggestions in re- 

 gard to protecting bird houses against eats : — 



Get from any pipe dealer a flange, say 6 inches long, the size 

 adopted for the standard; have it bored for three or four holes and 

 screw to the bottom of the bird house. Set an iron pipe (galvanized 

 preferred) in the ground far enough away from any trees to pre- 

 vent a squirrel from jumping from the tree to the top of the bird 

 house, and screw the flange on the end of the threaded pipe. If 

 the pipe is of a different diameter from the bore of the flange a 

 " bushing " can always be obtained to make the sizes the same. 



To employ the ordinary wooden rod for the standard on which 

 to set the bird houses, it is simply necessary to tack at a convenient 

 height, above where any person can reach, a row of fishhooks com- 

 pletely surrounding the pole, or, if assurance is wanted " doubly 

 sure," two rows, each row opposite to the other, but very near one 

 to the other. 



