Cat " Nests " Writing about the hostility of birds
towards cats, which was the subject of a note a fortnight ago, a correspondent from Devon writes: " It is not unusual for small birds to behave as your correspondent, Canon Tapper, describes. Chaffinches, robins and—in a slightly more flurried and less autocratic fashion—blackbirds and thrushes, often scold a cat soundly for no reason whatever except that he is where they obviously think he ought not to be. They will stand very near him when doing this and their cursing note is recognisable from afar. One can trace one's sleeping cat sometimes by the insistent cursing' and commanding of robin or chaffinch. It usually means that there are young birds. There seems to be some sort of gentleman's agreement involved. A cat usually has its own special daytime nests' (they do look like huge nests when he has used them for some time) in a summer garden, in long grass, under a suitable bush or on a shed roof touched by foliage, and in these chosen nests he may sleep uncursed, even if they are in what is otherwise forbidden ground. I should guess that Canon Tapper's cat in using a garden chair went right outside the laws of the agreement. After all, had he strolled round the garden he would have been followed and bossed vociferously, so. knowledgeably, he went indoors."
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