r to overlook a house-cat that I found as far
as a quarter of a mile from a farm or ranch, for if they have not
already turned wild, they are learning how easy it is to hunt and
live on game, and are almost as bad. We found Mr. Black-and-White
Hunter had eaten two quail just before we killed him that evening. I
would rather not write what Mr. Savage said when we found the
remains of a partly-eaten bird.

My advice is, don't let tame cats get away when found out hunting;
for the chances are they have not seen a home in months, and maybe
years,--and say! but they do get big and bad. When you meet one,
give it to him good, and don't let your dog run up to him until he
is out for keeps. I learned afterwards that was how Will knew it was
a cat. Queen had learned to back off and call for help on cats some
years before.

In the New York Zoological Park, we have had troubles of our own with
marauding cats. They establish themselves in a day, and quickly learn
where to seek easy game and good cover. In the daytime they lie close in
the thick brush, exactly as tigers do in India, but if not molested for
a period of days, they become bold and attack game in open view. One
bird-killing cat was so shy of man that it was only after two weeks of
hard hunting (mornings and evenings) that it was killed.

We have seen cats catch and kill gray squirrels, chipmunks, robins and
thrushes, and have found the feathers of slaughtered quail. Once we had
gray rabbits breeding in the park, and their number reached between
eighty and ninety. For a time they fearlessly hopped about in sight from
our windows, and they were of great interest to visitors and to all of
us. Then the cats began upon them; and in one year there was not a
rabbit to be seen, save at rare intervals. At the same time the
chipmunks of the park were almost exterminated.

That was the last straw, and we began a vigorous war upon those wild and
predatory cats. The cats came off second best. We killed every cat that
was found hunting in the park, and we certainly got some that were big
and bad. We eliminated that pest, and we are keeping it eliminated. And
with what result?

In 1911 a covey of eleven quail came and settled in our grounds, and
have remained there. Twenty times at least during the past eight months
(winter and spring) I have seen the flock on the granite ledge not more
than forty feet from the rear window of my office. Last spring when