ground. His relentless pursuit and destruction of the savage-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 permitted
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.
As a rule, the few predatory wild animals that remain are 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. It is the robin, 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.