Page 95 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CHAPTER VIII UNSEEN FOES OF WILD LIFE
Quite unintentionally on his part, Man, the arch destroyer and the most predatory and merciless of all animal species except the wolves, has rendered a great service to all the birds that live or nest upon the ground. Hisrelentlesspursuitanddestructionofthesavage-tempered, strong-jawed fur-bearing animals is in part the salvation of the ground birds of to-day and yesterday. If the teeth and claws had been per- mitted to multiply unchecked down to the present time, with man's warfare on the upland game proceeding as it has done, scores upon scores of species long ere this would have been exterminated.
But the slaughter of the millions of North American foxes, wolves, weasels, skunks, and mink has so overwhelmingly reduced the four- footed enemies of the birds that the balance of wild Nature has been preserved. Asarule,thefewpredatorywildanimalsthatremainare not slaughtering the birds to a serious extent; and for this we may well be thankful.
The Domestic Cat.—In such thickly settled communities as our northern states, from the Atlantic coast to the sandhills of Kansas and Nebraska, the domestic cat is probably the greatest four-footed scourge of bird life. Thousands of persons who never have seen a hunting cat in action will doubt this statement, but the proof of its truthfulness is only too painfully abundant.
Unhappily it is the way of the hunting cat to stalk unseen, and to kill the very birds that are most friendly with man, and most helpful to him in his farming and fruit-growing business. The quail is about the only game bird that the cat affects seriously, and to it the cat is very destructive. Itistherobin,catbird,thrush,bluebird,dove,woodpecker, chickadee, phoebe, tanager and other birds of the lawn, the garden and orchard that afford good hunting for sly and savage old Thomas.
When I was a boy in my 'teens, I had a lasting series of object lessons onthecatasapredatoryanimal. Our"Betty"wasthemostambitious and successful domestic-cat hunter of wild mammals of which I ever haveheard. Toher,ratsandmiceweremerechild's-play,andaftera time their pursuit offered such tame sport that she sought fresh fields forherprowess. Thenshebroughtinyoungrabbits,chipmunksand thirteen-lincd spermophiles, and once she came in, quite exhausted, half draggingandhalfcarryingabig,fatpocketgopher. Withheritseemed to be a point of honor that she should bring in her game and display it. Little did we realize then that in course of time the wild birds would