282 THE ZOOLOGIST 
number of these feline marauders in London is estimated at not 
less than half a million, while ownerless Cats, which are thus 
thrown more on their own resources, are considered to reach in 
the same area the prodigious quantity of from eighty to a hundred 
thousand. These furies hunt the parks by night. ‘‘ The noisy 
clang of the closing park gates is a sound well known to the Cats 
in the neighbourhood; no sooner is it heard than they begin to 
issue from areas and other places where they have been waiting, 
and in some spots as many as half a dozen to a dozen may be 
counted in as many minutes crossing the road and entering the 
park at one spot.”” No wonder that lovers of birds—either wild 
or in captivity—are ‘‘ death on Cats.” 
This book contains no lists of birds, but is devoted to general 
facts, many of which are of an anecdotal character. Some good 
stories are told, and perhaps one of the most piquant is that of 
Mr. Cunninghame Graham writing to an eminent ornithologist — 
for advice as to obtaining Rooks for his trees, and receiving a 
lengthy reply “pointing out the fallacies of Socialism as a 
political creed, but saying nothing about Rooks.” Mr. Hudson 
writes in a delightfully unconventional manner, a by no means 
too frequent occurrence in these days; he is also not afraid of 
‘calling names.” Thus a local birdstuffer “who killed the last 
surviving Magpies at Hampstead” is not inappropriately styled a 
‘** miscreant,”’ and the keeper who destroyed the. last Ravens’ nest 
in Hyde Park justly earns the title of ‘injurious wretch.” The 
author is a true lover of birds, as his own words best testify. 
“Without the ‘wandering Hern,’ or Buzzard, or other large 
soaring species, the sky does not impress me with its height and 
vastness; and without the sea-fowl the most tremendous sea- 
fronting cliff is a wall which may be any height; and the noblest 
cathedral without any Jackdaws soaring and gambolling about its 
towers is apt to seem little more than a great barn, or a Dissenting 
chapel on a gigantic scale.” 
