Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation

by William T. Hornaday

In Mr. Forbush's book there is an illustration of the cat which killed fifty-eight birds in one year, and the animal was photographed with a dead robin in its mouth. The portrait is reproduced in this chapter.

Last year, a strong effort was made in Massachusetts to enact a law requiring cats to be licensed. On account 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 infallibly know the worst of the wild cats—by their presence away from home, hunting in the open. Kill all such, wherever found. The harmless cats are domestic in their tastes, and stay close to the family fireside and the kitchen. Being properly fed, they have no temptation to become hunters. There are cats and cats, just as there are men and men: some tolerable, many utterly intolerable. No sweeping sentiment for all cats should be allowed to stand in the way of the abatement of the hunting-cat nuisances.

Of all men, the farmer cannot afford the luxury of their existence! It is too expensive. With him it is a matter of dollars, and cash out of pocket for every hunting cat that he tolerates in his neighborhood. There are 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 birds, and especially of upland game birds, by roaming dogs, has in some localities become a great curse to bird life. Complaints of this kind have come from New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Usually the culprits are hunting dogs—setters, pointers and hounds.

Now, surely it is not necessary to set forth here any argument on this subject. It is not open to argument, or academic treatment of any kind. The cold fact is:

In the breeding season of birds, and while the young birds are incapable of quick and strong flight, all dogs, of every description, should be restrained from free hunting; and all dogs found hunting in the woods during the season referred to should be arrested, and their owners should be fined twenty dollars for each offense. Incidentally, one-half the fine should go to the citizen who arrests the dog. The method of restraining hunting dogs should devolve upon dog owners; and the law need only prohibit or punish the act.

Beyond a doubt, in states that still possess quail and ruffed grouse, free hunting by hunting dogs leads to great destruction of nests and broods during the breeding season.

Telegraph And Telephone Wires. —Mr. Daniel C. Beard has strongly called my attention to the slaughter of birds by telegraph wires that has come under his personal observation. His country home, at Redding, Connecticut, is near the main line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railway, along which a line of very large poles carries a great number of wires. The wires are so numerous that they form a barrier through which it is difficult for any bird to fly and come out alive and unhurt.