C . F . HODGE 
15 
chicks, his mate now joins him in their care and they have 
reared the brood of perfectly clean and healthly little fel¬ 
lows for three weeks. The dog takes another vacation on 
a cold, dewy, almost frosty night, a cat disturbs them, and 
only three of the chicks are alive next morning. The rest 
are found scattered and chilled in the wet grass. “Perhaps 
it was something else,” you say? The cat was caught in a 
trap at the corner of the cage the next night. 
No one has any objection to cats, as pets properly cared 
for and controlled; but we must face this problem fairly. 
We may start our twenty million children to protecting and 
caring for the birds. Under present conditions all this ef¬ 
fort will mean: “A little more cat feed.” People every¬ 
where are asking, “Why do we not have more birds?” or, 
“How can we have more birds?” Forbush followed a cat 
for a single day and actually saw her break up six birds’ 
nests, killing all the young and two of the parent birds. For 
a number of localities observed by the writer he is convinced 
that cats have done more to exterminate the bobwhite than 
sportsmen and all other natural enemies combined. 
But after all, the bobwhites themselves have paid the 
score in full by the delight they have given as pets. It is 
the great value of these birds in this relation to our children 
that affords the hope that they may be, erelong, properly 
appreciated and protected in every field, garden, and home 
in the land. 
Reprinted from Nature and Culture, 
□evoted to Nature Study. 
Send 2 cis. tor Sample Coyy. 
Nature and Culture, No. 4 W. 7th bt. 
CINCINNATI, 0. 
