Terence M. Sullivan's business card announces him as the performing plumber.

It's a fair warning to his customers that once he sticks his head under their sinks he is guaranteed to launch into a wisecracking monologue in one of the many voices he has mastered. Or to break into song - be it folk, blues, or one of his beloved traditional Irish ballads - in his rich tenor.

"I tell them I like to keep the pipes pitched," said Mr. Sullivan, who splits his time between SoHo, where he runs his plumbing business, and the cozy house he and his longtime companion, Jeanelle Myers, have owned on Richards Drive in Sag Harbor since 1991. "I'm the token Irishman in Azurest," he said.

Singing Comes First

While Mr. Sullivan makes his living as a plumber, he prefers to live his life as a singer - he has performed with choruses in New York over the past 20 years and with Pete Seeger on a number of occasions - and as a guardian of his Irish heritage.

"Someone once said I live my life as a passion, and I do," he said. "I could have made more money if I stuck to plumbing, but I've always been willing to put it aside for a chance to sing."

In keeping with his current passion, Mr. Sullivan is eager to launch a seisiun - Irish for a get-together, usually in a pub, where people sing traditional songs, tell stories, and recite poems - on the East End.

Unwritten Etiquette

In a seisiun, "everybody who comes to sing or play will get a chance to perform," Mr. Sullivan said. Usually, newcomers will perform their "party piece, their best stuff, and show off what they can do."

But there is an unwritten etiquette governing who plays when and for how long, "just as there are strict rules for how rounds are bought in a pub," he said.

"The Irish are really into being generous and open, but it has to be orderly. If you're an outsider, they understand that you don't understand, but if you keep coming back, you'll be expected to learn."

Defeating Bullies

The traditions are adhered to, he continued, because the Irish, after centuries under an oppressive English rule that made it a crime even to speak their own language, are determined to keep their culture alive.

"It's a rebel music. The theme of defeating bullies large and small recurs," he said. "There's also an anti-materialism, a search for spiritual beauty, and while it is often sad, there's a lot of humor too."

To demonstrate, Mr. Sullivan breaks into "Mr. Moses R-Tooral-i-lay," the story of a Jewish merchant who hangs a sign above his Dublin shop and is dragged before the magistrate by an ignorant English cop who mistakes the Hebrew for Irish. The merchant hits it off with the judge, and the cop, who was aiming for a promotion, winds up sweeping streets.

But the mood shifts quickly as he moves on to "Amhran Dochais," or "The Song of Hope," a "let's-get-our act-together song," he said, that laments the civil unrest that followed Ireland's independence from England in 1922.

Ironically, the song "is never sung in anything but English, and that drives the purists crazy," he said.

The country's suffering under English occupation is the theme of "Four Green Fields." Like Tommy Makem, the song's writer and a former member of The Clancy Brothers, Mr. Sullivan likes to introduce it with a Seamus Heaney poem, "Requiem for the Croppies," about a band of Irish revolutionaries who were slaughtered after the short-lived Wexford uprising in 1789.

Discovered His Roots

And he finishes off an impromptu concert with a version of "My Lagan Love," a song with a haunting melody that scholars have compared to Indian music. "When the Europeans began experimenting with harmonies hundreds of years ago, the Irish said, 'Who needs harmony if you have a good melody?' " he said.

Despite being born into a second generation Irish-American family in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood on Dec. 7, 1946 - "Needless to say, there were a lot of family jokes about getting bombed on my birthday," he said - Mr. Sullivan discovered Irish song and verse on his own.

"It's the role of the second generation to deny their roots," Mr. Sullivan said. "Normally you'd think being a singer would be welcomed in an Irish family - I found this out later - but they thought it was the most outrageous thing I could do."

Like other children of the 1950s and early 1960s, Mr. Sullivan found himself drawn to rock-and-roll and the folk scene. He was already the "neighborhood beatnik" when he attended a 1963 Carnegie Hall concert by Mr. Seeger that was later released as the "We Shall Overcome" album.

"That put me right over the edge," he said.

Mr. Sullivan later sang in "hootenanny groups" and, after a stint in the Army, during which he was fortunate to avoid being shipped off to Vietnam, sang lead in a group called Blu Doctor while attending Dowling College. "It was a combination of light show, experimental theater, and blues," he said of the late '60s adventure.

In the '70s, Mr. Sullivan moved to SoHo, where he tried his hand at acting and learned plumbing as a way to make a living. Later, he took up video-making. Most of his works "were spoofs" on television commercials, he said.

Spiritual Music

His interest waned in the mid-'80s after he sent his "New Clear Detergent" commercial to an Oregon film festival where they missed the point, implicit in the name of the product, of his satire.

Eager for an artistic outlet, Mr. Sullivan joined the Art Mob, a New York-based chorus that specialized in early American music and spirituals. He continued his research into music by attending a series of workshops in Rhinebeck, N.Y., including one in 1988 that was taught by Joseph Shabalalla, the leader of the South African a cappella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

The experience with Mr. Shabalalla enthralled Mr. Sullivan, who returned the next year for a workshop on gospel and spiritual music and again in 1990 for a session on folk music led by Mr. Seeger.

Dream Come True

"It was ending on a whimper," Mr. Sullivan recalled, so he approached his idol and suggested they close the program with Woody Guthrie's "Dusty Old Dust," a rousing folk staple that is better known by its chorus, "So long, It's been good to know you."

"Pete looked at me and said, 'You've got just the voice to lead it,' " Mr. Sullivan said, his own voice mimicking Mr. Seeger's quavering whisper.

After the final sing-along, the two men sat down for a chat. When Mr. Sullivan said he wanted to form an interracial chorus, Mr. Seeger's eyes lit up. He had been contemplating a similar project. "You're just the person I'm looking for!" he said.

"You have to understand, this is my childhood hero," said Mr. Sullivan. "I turned around in my chair to see who he was talking to."

Friendship Formed

Mr. Sullivan joined the group, which later became The New York Street Singers, and developed a strong friendship with Mr. Seeger. When a concert was held to commemorate Carnegie Hall's centennial in 1991, Mr. Seeger asked Mr. Sullivan and four other singers, a group known as Stone Soup, to perform "Amazing Grace" with him.

At that concert, Stone Soup also backed up Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary, who were forced to sing without Mary Travers, who was recovering from throat surgery.

Mr. Seeger repaid the favor when he played concerts at the Old Whalers Church in 1993 and 1994, along with Stone Soup, to help raise funds for the Eastville Community Historical Society. "We had 'em hanging from the rafters," Mr. Sullivan said.

The success of those concerts is something Mr. Sullivan relishes, although he is aiming for something a little more low key with his seisiuns.

"If some people want to take it to that level and go out and perform, great," he said, "but mostly I just want it to be a chance for people to come and swap stories and songs."

January is consumed with introspection: by government officials on the state of their constituencies, institutions on their profit picture, and individuals on how to broaden their personal horizons - or, perhaps, narrow their girth.

The point of all the review and resolution is the same as it has always been: to figure out what's important to us and then try to improve upon it.

Americans are constantly being asked what they think of this or that, on the telephone, in the mail, before and after voting, in high school reunion questionnaires, and on surveys we are asked to complete after a hotel stay, a meal, a seminar, or even as a patient at the local hospital.

This week, a wholly new opinion-taking venue emerged - a reliable one, too. It is the East Hampton Cinema, where at least three recent audiences, and we wager many more, cast votes for a better health care system.

The ballots were unconventional, and spontaneous. Indeed, they were cheers, hoots, and vigorous applause that followed Helen Hunt's line in "As Good As It Gets" that went, "Those f--ing H.M.O. b---d pieces of s-t!"

Ms. Hunt plays the single mother of a young boy with life-threatening asthma whose managed-care company allows him only incomplete testing and inadequate treatment at a city hospital emergency room and clinic. Not until a privately paid (we won't reveal how) specialist takes over, making a house call no less, does the boy get to have a life. And Ms. Hunt gets to get mad.

Listen up, Oxford, Aetna, Vytra, Empire, et al. It sounds to us as though folks don't want to take it anymore.

Oh, and Mr. Gallup? You might want to chuck those forms and phone calls and go to a movie tonight.

For the second time in a month, a Hollywood film with a link to East Hampton has been the center of a plagiarism suit. The opening Friday of "Tomorrow Never Dies," the James Bond movie written by Bruce Feirstein, a part-time East Hampton resident, was dampened by news that three would-be screenwriters had accused him and MGM Studios of stealing their idea.

Just before Christmas, Steven Spielberg's film "Amistad," about a slave ship that landed off Montauk after a mutiny, opened amid accusations that his DreamWorks SKG lifted material from Barbara Chase-Riboud's 1989 novel "Echo of Lions." Her claim and an ensuing controversy have filled the columns of the metropolitan press.

While a judge permitted "Amistad" to open as planned, he agreed that Ms. Chase-Riboud's lawsuit could proceed. Mr. Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, have an estate in East Hampton.

Feirstein Script

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Howard, Chris Beutler, and Jay Schlossberg-Cohen are seeking $5 million in damages from MGM. In their suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, they claim that their script for an as-yet unproduced action film, called "Currency of Fear," is similar in 11 ways to "Tomorrow Never Dies," the 18th James Bond film and the first written solely by Mr. Feirstein.

"We believe this is a frivolous action and we will vigorously defend our position," said Craig Parsons, the MGM spokesman.

The three plaintiffs claim the most obvious similarity is between the respective villains, each a British media mogul who seeks to benefit by creating tension between the British and Chinese over the transfer of Hong Kong.

Called "Absurd"

Reached Monday at home in Santa Monica, Mr. Feirstein called the lawsuit "absurd."

"It's the Zeitgeist. These ideas are just out there in the air. A media mogul having something to do with Hong Kong in 1996, just before the turnover, is something 300 people could have come up with," he said.

The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Feirstein's wife, Madeline Warren, had been among the studio executives and talent agents who read the "Currency" script when it was being circulated in March of 1996. At the time, Ms. Warren was senior vice president for productions for New Regency studios.

But, her husband said she was then supervising the post-production of "Tin Cup" and production of "L.A. Confidential," and is usually too busy anyway to read the 30 to 60 scripts that cross her desk every month.

The records indicate she sent "Currency of Fear" to a professional reader and the report came back negative, calling it "amateurish" and an "incoherent mess," Mr. Feirstein said, adding that Ms. Warren passed on it as a result.

"She never read it but, more to the point, I was living in London and working on 'Tomorrow Never Dies' and I already had a story approved by MGM," he said. Ms. Warren is now an independent producer.

He dismissed other alleged similarities as well, including that a computer nerd character in each script was named Henry - Henry Jones in "Currency" and Henry Gupta in "Tomorrow."

"Do they think my wife called me up and said 'I have just the solution for your script: Call him Henry'? Why didn't they just accuse me of also using black type on white paper?" he asked.

Mr. Feirstein, who wrote the book "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" while living in Sagaponack, said he recalled "people coming out of the woodwork saying they could sue me, that they had written first about men."

Mr. Parsons, of MGM, agreed, saying any successful, well-publicized project becomes "a target" when "the assumption is they've got deep pockets."

But, among professionals, there is usually "a certain level of trust," said Mr. Feirstein.

"I could go to Sidney Lumet, for example, and say I want to do a script about corrupt cops and drugs, and two years later he does a movie about corrupt cops and drugs. As a professional screenwriter, I understand there are many, many stories about corrupt cops and drugs."

"It isn't about plagiarism. It's about recognizing your own ideas in the marketplace," he said.

Perhaps nothing points up the disaster that the health care system in this country has turned out to be as sharply as the financial problems now facing Southampton Hospital.

The rapid and largely unregulated advent of health maintenance organization power over the delivery of care, following upon the debacle of the national health-care debate in the first Clinton Administration, has left hospital administrators, here and elsewhere, the terrible job of crisis management. It's not a comfortable situation.

Everyone hopes that the crisis is temporary; that sooner rather than later government will face its responsibility to the public and rein in the nonmedical decision-making and greed that catapulted us to the present situation.

Small regional hospitals, such as Southampton, can do many things right. While they cannot be expected to provide the most complex protocols or many renowned specialists, they can be models of good medicine as far as they go. We have relied on this in Southampton.

Support for it has been almost universal. No one wants to see the hospital we depend on, the place where many of us were born or gave birth, where family and friends have let go of life, or been mended and set on healthier courses, in trouble. And no one wants to imagine that a time could come when the staff there will not be adequate to the public's needs.

In keeping with the national emphasis on public education and preventive medicine among hospitals rather than only the treatment of disease, however, Southampton Hospital would seem to have extended its reach too far too soon. Optimists, the administrators of the hospital, led by Dr. John J. Ferry Jr., believed that the new H.M.O. show would work, or, at the very least, be cost-effective.

So Southampton went with the flow, riding the wave of rapid change until the foam came crashing down all over. As might be expected under such circumstances, a lot of patching up is left to be done.

We expect the hospital to do the job - well - for all our sakes.

    The Drawing Room proprietors Emily Goldstein and Victoria Munroe have become proficient at the type of group exhibit that blends their stable of gallery artists with examples of other contemporary artists and those of the past.

    “Eyes on the Natural World,” their latest endeavor, is another such example, and if their approach is beginning to seem formulaic, the art they have chosen continues to surprise and delight.

    In this case, a collection of 19th-century ink and watercolor studies of snakes packs an unusual visual punch that is a good foil to the ethereal insects in oil on panel by Jill Musnicki on an adjacent wall.

    The snakes are faithfully represented, but their composers have gathered them in fanciful squiggles and tangles. It certainly must have been a challenging practical matter to fit the snakes on the available paper size while still producing a detailed representation, but like many studies of the natural world, the works have an aesthetic appeal that goes beyond their scientific use.

    And so it goes in the gallery, with Jean Pagliuso’s chicken models matched with John Alexander’s drawings of birds and 17th and 18th-century watercolors of an owl and “Perroquet.” Mr. Alexander’s bird renderings are given his usual treatment with titles that are more like quips, such as the hummingbirds in “Rush to Judgment” and an egret called “Lone Ranger.”

    Ms. Pagliuso also adopts an irreverent air with her chickens, which she titles as if they are abstractions, such as “White #12” and “Black #9,” both from 2005, and photographs of the poultry posed like supermodels in a self-consciously artificial studio setting that highlights the birds’ showy plumage and somewhat haughty air.

    On a wall devoted to landscapes, Jane Wilson’s watercolor seascapes blend with Henri Marchal’s monotype landscapes, Clifford Ross’s photographs of waves during a hurricane, and a few unsigned French ink and wash landscapes.

    All of the landscapes are particularly compelling in their diminutive treatment. With the exception of one of Mr. Marchal’s monotypes, which measures 15 by 20 inches, the rest of the landscapes measure 8 inches or less. Mr. Ross’s works measure about 2 by 3 inches. None of them sacrifice any of their power, however, and instead point out that an artist does not need a large expanse to deliver a formidable message.

    Charles Yver, a French artist who painted a variety of tropical fish for the “Petit Atlas des Poissons” published in 1942, offers a taffy-colored vision of a whole aquarium’s worth of species. They are paired with renderings of the “Fishes of India,” studies by unknown 19th-century Calcutta artists.

    Mr. Yver’s drawings are well preserved and vibrant with very specific titles in French such as “dorade” for a common porgy or bream fish, and “mulet” for mullet fish. In most cases the crowded field of five or six species swim harmoniously in the same direction, their colors highlighted by a fanciful undersea background.

    Michelle Stuart’s Rorschach-like ink and gouache blots of butterflies and moths on folded and unfolded paper share affinities with the other art on the walls, but are somewhat singular within the exhibit as a whole. Chance seems to play a key role in her process in the beginning, and then evolves into more specific representations of her subject matter as she completes the images with her paintbrush.

    Next to Ms. Stuart’s work, a study of wasps by J.G. Pretre, a French artist, from about 1810, is far more specific in its presentation, but more generalized in its identification. The renderings are so delicate and pretty that they could serve as models for a brooch.

    The exhibit is on view through Jan. 31.

AMAGANSETT

Romanowski to Thomas Dietz and Marcia Tetelman, Hampton Lane, $690,000.

Kirkwood to James and Catherine Charatan, Central Avenue, $375,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Maguire to Stephen Cuyler and Jo Ann Burk, Kellis Pond Lane, $840,000.

Topping to Ralph Schiano Jr. and Leslie Jennemann, private road, $220,000.

Crasco to Cori Miller and David Jaffe, Harvest Lane, $1,262,500.

Paulsen to Bridgehampton Partners Co., Farm Field Road, $200,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Pucci Jr. to Susan Waterbury, Dominy Court, $305,000.

Garbarini to Dianne Stasi, Whooping Hollow Road, $156,000.

Christiansen to James and Kathryn Pool, Wagon Lane, $600,000.

Ruderman to Howard Goldberg, Centre Way, $295,000.

Victory to Michael Katz, Cove Hollow Road, $350,000.

Seafields L.L.C. to Rectory Realty Assoc., Montauk Highway, (two vacant lots) $1,400,000.

Von Kamarowski to Gary and Catherine Mannix, Three Mile Harbor Road, $180,000.

Stewart estate to Katherine Eppley and Michael Hennessy, Three Mile Harbor Road, $200,000.

Osterberg to Timothy and Monica Murray, Sherrill Road, $225,000.

MONTAUK

Underhill estate to Thomas Griffin, East Lake Drive, $310,000.

Elliott to John Maloney, South Fairview Avenue, $160,000.

Moakley to Michael Matthews, East Lake Drive, $500,000.

Ahtes to Michael and Annabel Kelly, Adams Drive, $200,000.

NORTH HAVEN

DC Partners to Alexander Demetriades, Bay View Court, $500,000.

NOYAC

Bianco to Amy Urquhart, Rosewood Drive, $166,000.

NORTHWEST

Ender to Philip, Lynn, Joel, and Toby Levy, Kalman Court, $385,000.

SAG HARBOR

Yadah estate to Gayle and Thomas Heine, Archibald Way, $250,000.

Chase Manhattan Bank to Jeff Brande, Redwood Road, $350,000.

Pappas to Leonard Barton and Irene Tschacbasov, Poplar Street, $152,500.

SAGAPONACK

Hillary Dev. Corp. to Parsonage Pond Dev. Corp., Jared's Lane, $525,000.

SPRINGS

Wald to Roger Ames, Hildreth Place, $166,000.

Stamp to Philip and Shelley Aarons, Gerard Drive, $750,000.

Harris to Richard and Eva Brooks, Longwoods Lane, $272,000.

Pembroke Trust to Eve Nelson, Pembroke Drive, $150,000.

WATER MILL

Pappas to Harvey Fine and Ann Dey, Tanager Lane, $460,000.

Hagen to Carolyn Gemake, Hayground Road, $825,000.

When Carl Safina of Islip was fined $50 after pleading guilty in East Hampton Town Justice Court to being in possession of an undersized striped bass back in September, it was reported as a matter of course in this newspaper - a minor infraction.

The fish measured 27 inches long. The law says it must be 28 inches. Perhaps the angler was too quick with the tape measure.

That one inch, however, was packed with great symbolic meaning to commercial tuna fishermen in these parts. News of the illegal inch got around the Montauk docks quickly.

Outspoken Critic

That's because Mr. Safina is the director of the Living Oceans Program of the Audubon Society, and in that capacity has been outspoken in his criticism of the commercial tuna fishing industry.

He is a scientist, and a student of bluefin tuna and its management, both domestic and under the aegis of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.

In this respect he has been seen as a worthy, if troublesome, opponent in the arcane dialogue over tuna, its quotas, and minimum size limits.

Coast Guard Visit

"I'm sure there's people out there who would like to think I'm a total hypocrite, that this is not the first time. Such is not the case," Mr. Safina said on Tuesday.

A letter to the editor appears in this issue written by David Nemerson, a friend of Mr. Safina and a Ph.D. candidate in the field of ecology and evolution, who claims responsibility for the one-inch-short fish.

"We were trolling on a Sunday afternoon," Mr. Safina said. "It was rough and crowded. I had two guys on the deck - one is a Ph.D., one is going to be - and a ruler, and a fish. I said to myself, 'Do I need to leave the wheel to check the fish?' We were pulled over by the Coast Guard. They found the short fish. I turned to David and said, 'How could this happen?'"

Embarrassed

Once on land, the boat was visited by Joseph Billotto, a State Department of Environmental Conservation officer, who had his summons book out. Mr. Nemerson fessed up, but when Officer Billotto asked for his I.D., the angler realized he'd left his wallet home. Mr. Safina accepted the ticket.

"This is very embarrassing," the Audubon director said, and noted that the incident had taken a bit of the flower off the recent publication of his book, "Song for the Blue Ocean" (Henry Holt Company).

Mr. Safina described his book as a travel and adventure narrative of coastal trips in the North Atlantic, Asia, Micronesia, with chapters on the annual ICCAT meetings in Madrid, and a watershed meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Japan.

The owner of the historic Montauk Playhouse, a dilapidated Tudor-style building on Edgemere Road, is trying to drum up interest in his latest proposal to restore the building and convert it into 50 senior citizen apartments.

Joe Oppenheimer bought the Playhouse more than 10 years ago and since then has proposed condominium apartments, subsidized condominiums, and low-rental apartments for the site.

There were suggestions it house a community center, a neighborhood business complex, satellite classrooms for the Montauk School, and a museum of natural history. All of these have stumbled over zoning and planning hurdles or fallen through because of the huge anticipated costs of restoring the 1920s-era building.

One-Bedroom Units

To move forward with his current plan, Mr. Oppenheimer is asking the town for a zoning change that would allow him to create 50 apartment units in the Playhouse. Several years ago he got approval to create up to 32 affordable housing units in the building.

The rental price he's now considering does not meet the town's affordable housing guidelines, but Mr. Oppenheimer believes there's enough of a demand for reasonably priced rentals to make this project work for him and for local seniors.

He's proposing 700-square-foot, one bedroom apartments with a kitchen and living room for $775 per month. The price would include heat and hot water and private transportation for shopping and other errands. Tenant preference would be given to East Hampton Town residents.

Some Concerns

The town is concerned that the $775 per month he's suggesting wouldn't be affordable for local residents over 55. "What we're going to have is condominiums for seniors who live here in the summer and Florida in the winter," Councilman Peter Hammerle worried at a Town Board meeting last month.

"If we're going to increase density we want to meet the needs of the people who live here," Supervisor Cathy Lester added.

Mr. Oppenheimer maintains that there will be local interest. It might come, he guessed, from year-round residents looking to find living accommodations in the area for their parents.

"Win Win Situation"

"Everybody wants to see the building restored and everybody says it's a great idea," Mr. Oppenheimer said last week. To make it work financially, he said, he needs the town to approve the additional density.

"It's a win-win situation as far as the town is concerned," he added. The building would be restored, the tax base would be increased, and, because full-time residents under 18 won't be allowed, the growing Montauk School won't be further burdened.

Though the Town Board was leery of making the changes Mr. Oppenheimer has asked for, they instructed him to see if there was a genuine local interest and bring that information back to the town.

Interest Generated

With that in mind, Mr. Oppenheimer placed advertisements in local papers last week touting that "the long-awaited resurrection of the famous Montauk Playhouse could be on the verge of happening." The ads call the apartments a "once in a lifetime opportunity," and include a brief form for interested people to fill out.

Within a week Mr. Oppenheimer said he had gotten over a dozen responses, all but one from people currently living in East Hampton Town. In the next month or so, he hopes to go back before the Town Board with enough feedback to prove his latest proposal for the Playhouse is worthy of the zoning change he needs to make it work.

East Hampton Housing Authority members will get an update on the Avallone apartments in Montauk and on the progress, or lack of it, at the Accabonac affordable housing project in East Hampton, at their monthly meeting on Monday at 11 a.m.

The 50-unit Accabonac apartment complex has been under construction for more than a year and a half, funded by more than $4 million in town-backed loans, plus a Federal subsidy, and revenue from the $3.15 million sale of Federal tax credits to the Bank of New York.

Now, just months away from completion, the East Hampton Housing Authority's second affordable housing project is at a standstill and in danger of losing its single biggest investor.

The authority will grapple with these issues and attempt to find solutions Monday. The meeting will be held in the Emergency Services Building behind Town Hall.

"To let the cat out or keep it indoors? Oh, that is the eternal question!" laughs Dr. Claude Grosjean of Southampton's Olde Towne Animal Hospital. To those accustomed to the more traditional role of the cat as mouser around the house, yard, and barn it might seem a ridiculous question, but many experts in feline care advocate keeping cats exclusively in the house, where they will be safe and sound.

The outside world is fraught with danger for kitty. Disease, attacks from other cats and from dogs and wildlife, parasite infestation, and cars are just a few of the hazards that await the free-roaming cat. However, the indoor cat may be very safe, but is it happy?

"It all comes down to the individual cat," said Dr. Nora Klepps of the Mattituck-Laurel Veterinary Clinic. All of Dr. Klepps's six cats live indoors and she adamantly states that they are indeed very happy.

They Adjust

The general consensus among experts is that cats who have always been indoor pets usually adjust to their restricted environment. Conflict between feline and human interests can occur when a well-meaning owner attempts to limit the activities of the previously free-roaming cat.

Not always, however. The only cat in my household who does not go outside (even though she has free access should she want to) is a one-time feral cat called Ghost. This tiny, once-wild creature has been firmly ensconced in my kitchen for several years and demands all the accessories of an indoor cat: toys, soft cushions, and (groan!) a litter box.

Dr. Mark Davis of the South Fork Animal Hospital in Wainscott states that keeping cats in or letting them out often depends on the personal philosophy of the owner. "Some owners just can't tolerate any risk when it comes to their pet," he said.

Safety Question

Dr. Davis does let his three cats out. "Number one, because they really want to go out. I want them to enjoy themselves. They have a good time outside; they play outside. But it depends on where you live. Busy streets, dangerous dogs, and lots of feral cats around are some of the perils in the environment that threaten cats."

Though cats are considerably more conservative in their attitude toward cars than dogs are (at least they aren't usually inclined to chase them), local veterinarians report that they all too frequently treat cats that have been hit by cars. Alas, these animals are usually too badly injured to survive.

Heavily trafficked roads are an obvious danger. Dr. Grosjean said another important safety factor to consider even if the cat owner lives on a relatively quiet road is how close their house is to the street. The farther the house is set back from the road, the greater the margin of safety.

Exposed To Disease

Feral cats are a definite hazard to house cats. Aside from injuries that result from fights, the pet cat is likely to be exposed to several diseases. All cats, and especially those that are allowed out of doors, should be vaccinated for distemper, feline leukemia virus, feline infectious peritonitis, and rabies.

Cat owners should be aware that feral cats are frequently carriers of the feline immunodeficiency virus, for which there is no vaccine or cure. F.I.V. is usually transmitted by fighting. Letting a pet cat wander among ferals puts it at considerable risk of infection.

Dogs can be a very real threat, too. Southampton Town has a leash law that prohibits owners from allowing dogs to roam, so, theoretically at least, outdoor cats are safer in Southampton.

Hunting Instinct

East Hampton does not restrict the roaming of canines and cat owners and their pets should keep a very wary eye out for strange dogs, particularly packs of them. Dogs that tolerate cats perfectly well in their own households are quite capable of killing cats they encounter elsewhere. The hunting instinct remains very strong within our pets.

The hunting instinct of cats is another reason people choose to keep them inside. The toll cats can take on birds, songbirds in particular, is a justifiable concern for cat owners. Though very expert hunters indeed, cats are not especially proficient at hunting birds, being far better equipped to dispatch rodents.

However, recent studies of cat predation disclose that it is far more likely to be the well-fed house cat that catches the bird, as opposed to the much maligned feral cat.

For The Sport

Feral cats are far too desperate for food to waste precious energy on prey that is so elusive and difficult to catch. Housecats, on the other hand, are hunting for the sport of it and appreciate a challenge.

Owners who opt to keep kitty in face another set of problems, primarily those dealing with behavioral problems. Though all adult cats sleep for at least 18 hours a day, what the animal does with its remaining time can be crucial to its physical and mental health.

Cats that live exclusively indoors are far more likely to be obese. Obesity is a serious and common condition among house cats and various medical problems are associated with it. Owners who are depriving a cat of its normal range of physical activities by keeping it indoors need to replace those activities with regular daily playtimes.

"Furniture"

Mental stimulation is important too. Humans tend to judge an area by how much floor space it has, but cats, as climbers, utilize vertical space as well. The addition of carpeted climbing posts with stepped platforms to the cat's home can increase the cat's activity level and sense of well-being.

Cat "furniture" is available at local pet stores or, for more elaborate custom designs, through the Angelical Cat Company based in Sunrise, Fla.

Indoor cats will scratch furniture, no two ways about it. Placing scratching posts next to the object of attention may conflict with an owner's decorating scheme but doing so, coupled with consistent, patient training, is the only way to reliably deflect the cat's natural, albeit destructive from the human's point of view, clawing inclinations onto an acceptable object.

Dr. Grosjean suggests hiding small portions of a cat's food throughout the house as a way to provide stimulation. This forces kitty to "hunt" for its dinner and can circumvent destructive behavior.

Dr. Grosjean suggests hiding small portions of a cat's food throughout the house as a way to provide stimulation. This forces kitty to "hunt" for its dinner and can circumvent destructive behavior.

Cats do have a need for fiber and an attraction to greenery. Houseplants will take a beating. And some of them can hit back. Dieffenbachia, philodendron, caladium, amaryllis, daffodil, and tulips are just a few of the plants that can cause serious illnesses or even death. Keep them out of reach.

Amputation of the claws, commonly known as declawing, should only be considered as a very last resort, when all else fails, including trying to find another home for the cat. Local veterinarians are reluctant to perform this drastic surgery, for good reason.

Half And Half

Clearly, keeping a cat indoors requires more work for the owner. There are some compromises available. There is a company manufacturing fencing built specifically to keep cats in an outdoor area. Whether it works as effectively as advertised is unknown to this writer, but it's certainly an appealing option. Cat owners interested in this can contact Cat Fence-In, located in Sparks, Nev., for information.

Another option is to do as Dr. Davis does. He lets his cats enjoy their freedom during the day but they are shut-ins at night. Dr. Davis reports that his kitties seem content with this arrangement. They've let off enough steam while outdoors so they aren't inclined to scratch the furniture and chew the plants, but they're home safe during the, in many respects, more hazardous nighttime hours.

Compromise

"Nighttime is big trouble for cats. It is the time of highest activity for feral cats when most of the fighting occurs. And cats are also more likely to encounter nocturnal wildlife like raccoons." he said.

What do cats want? Well, after years of observation, it would seem that their concept of the perfect solution to the in-or-out question is to be both in and out simultaneously. A cat's-eye view of perfection appears to be sitting in an open doorway in a state of deep contemplation while letting the cold weather blow through the house. Sorry kitty, but we all have to compromise.