Nearly a hundred correspondents, scattered through all the counties
of the state, report the cat as one of the greatest enemies of
birds. The reports that have come in of the torturing and killing of
birds by cats are absolutely sickening. The number of birds killed
by them in this state is appalling.

Some cat lovers believe that each cat kills on the average not more
than ten birds a year; but I have learned of two instances where
more than that number were killed in a single day, and another where
seven were killed. If we assume, however, that the average cat on
the farm kills but ten birds per year, and that there is one cat to
each farm in Massachusetts, we have, in round numbers, seventy
thousand cats, killing seven hundred thousand birds annually.

[Illustration: 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 of this Gray Rabbit]

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