Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-21

Birds know nothing about interna-
tional, national or municipal affairs
but attend strictly to their business OF
living tie bird life.
A pigeon was walking along Twelfth
street at Pennsylvania avenue, right In
the traffic line, when buses and pri-
Vate cars bore down upon 1t.
Wien the great wheels of the bus
were within 2 feet the pigeon raised its
wings ana flew heavily away.
1t flew capably. howel er, and was In
no danger at all, perhaps not one
tenth as much as the average human
being. who. il re had waited until the
bus was that close, would never have
removed himself alive.
Thus it may be said that the birds
cope better with modern conditions In
some respects than human beings do
This comes about because they are in
different TO our affairs and regard q
bus as merely something dangerous,
making q great teal of noise.
These tiny SparroWs, hunting for
stray crumbs on the sidewalk-to them
the world is no different than 1t was
to their ancestors. Yonder great hotel
with its fine array of stories and win
dows, is just something for sparrow
to utilize
When a pedestrian comes along the
flock flies away to the window lodges
and sits there securely, while inside the
pane human being is paying well for
tie privilege.
y X X
Out in the suburbs tie birds are not
so numerous now. Autumn is at hand
when the thern ometer goes down to sc
degrees, 4 less than shown by the off,
cial tube at the Weather Bureau, where
1t Is not 50 co.'s.
Of he hieIc
are a few robins left. and these will be
around all Winter. Occasionally blue
jay sends his harsh croak over the
housetops. The wild canaries. bright
flashes of yellow. appear for few days
in the Shrubbery. They fly low and
yield some martyrs TO ever-vigilant
cats.
On the subject of house cats it is
interesting to note that some gentleman
has announced that there are 100000
600 cats in the United States, OF which
number $4,000, 600 are strays.
Just how the gentleman arrived at
these interesting figures was not stated
We imagine he did it by guesSwork
There is no census of cats in this or
any other country. Since no one knows
just how many cats there are, 1t is
even more impossible to say how many
StrayS there are.
AS HldLLeT Oh IdCL, the WOTI stray,
as applied to this animal, means prac-
tically nothing at all. Straying is their
business in life. and no man by looking
at cat can tell whether it is stray"
Skulking around is one of the great
cat games. They all do it at times,
and it means just exactly nothing SO
far as the cats status is concerned.
He would be a foolish person indeed
who would say. just because he saw a
cat go down an alley. that the creature
was stray. The chances are very de-
cided that it has a warm comfortable
home and is greatly admired by some
human being.
Our guess. which is quite as good as
the gentleman'S in question, is that If
there are l20,000,000 cats in America
which may or may not be true, there
are almost that many which either
have homes or can find such If they
want them.
The attempt to harm cats, the only
! animal other than the dog which is a
real friend of man, by branding out OF
thin air 65,000000 of them as ''strays
will not sit well with the average Amer
lean. whose sense of fair play will not
swallow either the attempt or the sta
tistics.