Page 98 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
In Mr. Forbush's book there is an illustration of the cat which killed fift}^- eight birds in one year, and the animal was photo- graphed with a dead robin initsmouth. Theportrait is reproduced in this chap- ter.
Last year, a strong effort was made in Massachusetts to enact a law requiring catstobelicensed. Onac- count of the amount of work necessary in passing the no-sale-of-game bill, that measure was not pressed, and so it did not become a law ; but another year it will undoubtedly be passed, for it is a good bill,
and extremely necessary at this time. Such a law is needed in every state!
There is a mark by which
you may instantly and in-
fallibly know the worst of
the wild cats—by their
presence away from home,
huntingintheopen. Killall
such,whereverfound. The
harmless cats are domestic
in their tastes, and stay close to the family fireside and the kitchen. Beingproperlyfed,theyhavenotemptationtobecomehunters. There are cats and cats, just as there are men and men: some tolerable, many utterlyintolerable. Nosweepingsentimentforallcatsshouldbeallowed
to stand in the way of the abatement of the hunting-cat nuisances.
Ofallmen,thefarmercannotaffordtheluxuryoftheirexistence! Itis tooexpensive. Withhimitisamatterofdollars,andcashoutofpocket foreveryhuntingcatthathetoleratesinhisneighborhood. Thereare two places in which to strike the hunting cats : in the open, and in the state legislature.
While this chapter was in the hands of the compositors, the hunting cat and gray rabbit shown in the accompanying illustration were brought in by a keeper.
Dogs as Destroyers of Birds.—I have received many letters from protectors of wild life informing me that the destruction of ground-nesting
A HUNTING CAT AND ITS VICTIM
This Cat had fed so bountifully on the Rabbits and Squirrels of the Zoological Park, that it ate only the Brain ofthisGrayRabbit