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AUDUBON CAT by Mary Calhoun

AUDUBON CAT

By

Pub Date: March 25th, 1981
Publisher: Morrow

Audubon cat? Yes, so Hilda is called by The Girl in her life because she's such an avid bird-watcher (and the family's an Audubon-Society family). Now, with The Girl away for two days, Hilda decides to make up for the loss of her cat food--to chipmunks and a pack rat--by catching herself some birds (while ""The Girl wasn't there to scold her for endangering the species""). And so the jests go--the instincts of cats rubbing against the interests of birders. The various birds that Hilda spots but doesn't succeed in catching are identified (though the two-color illustrations don't really enable us to recognize them); and after she's escaped from a predatory owl--but, she feels, proved herself a faithful bird-watcher--she's ready to settle for ""her fish-flavored, Audubon-approved dry cat food."" The problem with that resolution, however, is that we were originally told that the chipmunks and pack rat had made off with all the cat food put out for Hilda, ""and The Girl would be gone until the next day."" Maybe kids won't notice, since it's all so contrived--but certainly contrived to elicit recognition from young birders with a cat on the prowl.