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 athim. 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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