236 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



The economic status of house cats has been the subject of much dis- 

 cussion. They have been domesticated house pets for many centuries. 37 

 Though perfectly proper as pets, cats should not be allowed at large. 

 Though they catch some mice, they are not natural mousers most 

 of them not to be compared in this respect with some wild mammals 

 and various birds, such as hawks and owls. House cats are natural bird- 

 catchers. It is instinctive for them to catch birds. Especially will the 

 fluttering young birds just out of the nest arouse that instinct into 

 action. No amount of breeding or training succeeds in eradicating it, 

 as some owners fondly suppose has been done with their particular 

 pets. The very best-behaved, best-bred, well-fed cats, when closely 

 watched, have been detected in catching wild birds, and where cats 

 are abundant scarcely a young bird escapes them. One naturalist esti- 

 mated that cats kill 1,500,000 birds annually in New England and an- 

 other placed it at 3,500,000 for the whole United States. 



Most cats catch a few mice and occasionally an individual is an 

 excellent mouser, but the great majority are not, especially the well-fed 

 pets. Fisher says he caught twelve mice in traps in one room of a 

 ranch house, yet eight cats had % access to the room. 38 Very few cats 

 will catch rats, many being decidedly afraid of the common house 

 rat, which, in proportion to its size, is a formidable antagonist. 39 Cats, 

 placed in a rat-infested cellar, rushed out in great fright when the 

 doors were opened in the morning and fought against being returned, 

 but an owl, placed in the same cellar, killed nine rats the first night, 

 and continued to kill some nightly until they were gone. Cats, petted 

 and allowed freely to enter and leave the sick-room, transmit various 

 diseases, a subject discussed in Chapter xin, on Mammals as Disease 

 Carriers. 



Forbush made a very comprehensive study of the house cat problem, 

 and from his report we have abstracted the following items: Cities 

 are overrun by vagrant cats. The Animal Rescue League of Boston, 

 during the ten years from 1905 to 1914 inclusive, received 215,449 

 homeless cats, an average of 21,000 per annum, placed 2908 in homes 

 and destroyed 210,000. The American Society for the Prevention of 

 Cruelty to Animals picked up and destroyed 257,403 stray cats in 

 1910 and 303,949 in 191 1. Some game officials believe that cats destroy 



" Keller, The derivation of the European domestic animals, Ann. Kept. Smith- 

 sonian Inst. for 1912, p. 491. 



38 Fisher, The economic value of predacious birds and mammals, Yearbook U. S. 

 t. Agric. for 1908, p. 189. 



McAtee, Local suppression of agricultural pests by birds, Ann. Kept. Smith- 

 sonian Inst. for 1920, p. 433. 



