rease and multiply as cats have the power to do--was no doubt a very
effective means to that end. But in this age of progress we _can_ dispense
with cats--in the country at least. I have proved by experiment that a
half dozen wire-spring mice-traps, kept clean and freshly baited with
toasted cheese, are better than as many cats to keep pantries and
cupboards free of mice. As for rats, everybody knows that one rat-terrier
in a granary is better than an army of cats.

Many people, in their simplicity of soul, have believed that it is
possible to have the confidence of birds without banishing the cats, and
even that the cat might be so reformed that she would come to respect the
rights of the birds. These people generally refer triumphantly to the
"Happy Family" of Barnum--a cage containing a bird, a monkey, a cat and
several mice, all living together in sleepy amity. But this will not do.
The animals of that "family" were kept in such a semi-torpid state by
confinement and high living--even if they were not daily dosed, as some
declared, with Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup--that they had not spirit
enough to exercise their natural passions.

No, puss cannot be reformed; and since there are so many who cannot bring
their minds to destroy their favorite cats, nor to shut them up from
spring till fall, would it not be well to have cat boarding-houses opened
in cities to meet this need? I could name more than one who would
patronize such an institution. Our cat, old Navet--so called from her
habit of bringing up turnips from the cellar and insisting upon munching
them in the library--has been sent some miles away to a friend, who,
having several cats already, cannot expect to have birds about the house;
but if this resource failed, I should not hesitate long between even Navet
and the birds.

I had always known that more birds would nest about places where there
were no cats; but as I had always seen some birds in summer about all
houses, I did not realize what a wonderful effect would be produced by the
total absence of this dreaded foe to birds until I resolved to have no cat
about in summer, and banished the last one. From that day the birds began
to come nearer and nearer, stay longer each day, and finally, reassured,
build their nests in the grapevines, in the orchard trees, in the little
evergreens near the house, and in the branches of the raspberries and
blackberries. Scores came where formerly there had been but two