CATS, RATS, AND BIRDS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1931, Page 8

CATS, RATS, AND BIRDS

(To the Editor.) Sir,—l notice that the Director of the Dominion Museum, when drawing public attention to the presence of the Blue Wattle crow in a certain district, makes statements with reference to the habits of cats which few naturalists or ornithologists will agree with. For this gentleman's, information it might be emphasised that cats are not as a whole rat killers, but bird killers for preference. Some kill rats, but rarely eat them. The cat strikes by habit at any moving object, _as is I evidenced by the kitten playing with an empty cotton reel drawn by a child with a string, or a leaf blown by some passing zephyr. Thus it strikes at a rat or even a weasel with deadly precision. _ If pussy wants something nice and to its liking for a meal it goes for birds, and at times fish. It is an adept at taking the latter, as the writer has often witnessed. Of course, in a city where birds are mostly conspicuous by their absence, cats will be ! driven to taking mice and at times rats, but even there cats are quite unable to deal with the pests. The Director in the statements he makes has palpably fallen into a common public error," and I would crave space in order that the assertion may not go unchallenged.—l am, etc., NATURALIST.