ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY ll 



Vermont woman writes in Bird-Lore, "We have solved the question of 

 how to control our family cat. His days are spent under the south piazza, 

 where he sits contentedly looking out through the netting in front, or 

 curls up in a box in a shady corner. After the birds are quiet for the 

 night he is released. The good supper that awaits him at nine o'clock 

 never fails to bring him to the door, where he is captured and safely 

 shut up for the night." 



Cats should be licensed. Cat licenses would be doubly beneficial. Pet 

 cats would be better cared for, and the stray cats would be reduced to the 

 minimum. This would be a kindness to both and a blessing to man. There 

 is no room anywhere for vagabond cats. The license fee need not be large, 

 its chief purpose being to tag cats valued by somebody so that the proper 

 village authorities may know what cats are homeless, and also pay a fee to 

 some appointed person to trap stray cats and kill them in some humane way. 



The department of game and fish of the state administration has been 

 requested to draft a law which would permit municipalities to impose a 

 tax on cats as well as dogs. A simple way to bring this about would be 

 to insert four words in the revised statutes as they now are. This would 

 make the eightieth item in paragraph No. 62 of article No. 5 read as fol- 

 lows, the changes being printed in italics: "The city council in cities, 

 and the President and board of trustees in villages shall have the follow- 

 ing powers : 



"Eightieth : To regulate, restrain and prohibit the running at large 

 of horses, cattle, swine, sheep, goats, geese, dogs and cats, and to impose a 

 tax on dogs and cats." 



Clothed with these powers, municipalities should adopt cat ordinances 

 providing for the extermination of stray and unrestrained cats, and officers 

 should be designated to collect and dispose of such cats in a humane way. 

 All cats not bearing license tags should be designated stray and unrestrain- 

 ed cats and treated accordingly. 



Cats should be tethered or confined from late afternoon to late morn- 

 ing during the bird nesting season ; that is, from about April 1 to October 

 1. There is no logic or reason in passing laws to punish boys for killing 

 birds and allowing their parents to keep, with impunity, cats which kill 

 scores of birds in their life time. 



A great deal of patient w r ork will have to be done before the average 

 community is brought to realize the significance of the cat problem. The 

 same should be said of the average farm. A good way to awaken public 

 sentiment is for a group of interested persons to take a census of the cats 

 in their village or city. If a careful inquiry, during the census, is made 

 as to the habits of these cats and their probable destructiveness, data will 

 doubtless be collected that will astonish all who question the facts that are 

 usually presented in making out a case against the cats. The Illinois 

 Audubon Society wishes specific information as to the results of cat cen- 

 suses and observations. Write for copies of the Langdon Cat Circular to 

 use as campaign material. 



