65 
The natural enemies of birds, noted as harmful by the 
observers who have contributed to this portion of the report, 
may be arranged in the following order, with reference to 
the number reporting each: cats, eighty-two reports; foxes, 
fifty-eight; crows, fifty-four; English sparrows, thirty-nine; 
hawks, thirty-four; jays, twenty-six; owls, twenty-two; 
the elements, twenty-one ; 1 weasels, seventeen ; skunks, six ; 
snakes, three; pheasants, three; minks, three; orioles, three; 
chipmunks, two; raccoons, one. 
Cats and Dogs. — The destructiveness of the cat is noted 
not only by the greatest number of observers, but, with re- 
markable unanimity, nearly all who report on the natural 
enemies of birds place the cat first among destructive ani- 
mals. The domestic cat, then, introduced, fed, pampered and 
petted by man, heads the list, and sometimes leads even the 
sportsman in number of birds killed per day. Mr. William 
Brewster tells of a day’s hunt by four sportsmen with their 
dogs, in which they killed but one game bird, a bob-white. 
On their return at night to the farmhouse where they were 
staying, they found that the old cat had beaten their score, 
having brought in, during the day, two bob-whites and one 
grouse. Reports of the cat’s destructiveness come from every 
county in the State. Mature cats in good hunting grounds 
average about fifty birds each per year. I have recorded 
heretofore the destruction of all the young birds in six nests 
and two of the parent birds by one cat in a day. Cats kill 
for the sake of killing, and destroy more birds than they can 
eat. They take a savage pleasure in playing with their prey, 
and torturing it in the most cruel manner. Cats are more 
destructive than other animals, because so much more abun- 
dant. A friend who was raising pheasants was obliged to 
kill over two hundred cats in a few years. Game birds suffer 
much from the cat, but the smaller birds suffer more. Cats 
are far more destructive to birds than the fox, for they climb 
trees and take the young out of the nests. They easily catch 
young birds just learning to fly. They frequently catch the 
adult birds when upon the ground, feeding, drinking or bath- 
1 This subject was quite fully treated in my last special report, and will not be further 
noticed here. 
