128 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



and a half that has elapsed since the law went into effect. This represents the 

 destruction of at least 128,571 of the above-mentioned animals, most of which were 

 hawks and owls. 



" Granting that 5,000 chickens are killed annually in Pennsylvania by hawks and 

 owls, and that they are worth twenty-five cents each (a liberal estimate in view of the 

 fact that a large portion of them are killed when very young), the total loss would 

 be $1,250, and the poultry killed in a year and a half would be worth $1,875. Hence 

 it appears that during the past eighteen months the State of Pennsylvania has 

 expended $90,000 to save its farmers a loss of $1,875. But this estimate by no 

 means represents the actual loss to the farmer and the taxpayer of the State. It is 

 within bounds to say that in the course of a year every hawk and owl destroys at 

 least a thousand mice or their equivalent in insects, and that each mouse or its 

 equivalent so destroyed would cause the farmer a loss of two cents per annum. 

 Therefore, omitting all reference to the enormous increase in the numbers of these 

 noxious animals when nature's means of holding them in check has been removed, 

 the lowest possible estimate of the value to the farmer of each hawk, owl, and 

 weasel would be $20 a year, or $30 in a year and a half. 



" Hence, in addition to the $90,000 actually expended by the State in destroying 

 128,571 of its benefactors, it has incurred a loss to its agricultural interests of at 

 least $3,857,130, or a total loss of $3,947,130 in a year and a half, which is at the 

 rate of $2,631,420 per annum. In other words, the State has thrown away $2,105 

 for every dollar saved ! And even this does not represent fairly the full loss, for 

 the slaughter of such a vast number of predaceous birds and mammals is almost 

 certain to be followed by a correspondingly enormous increase in the numbers of 

 mice and insects formerly lield in check bj' them, and it will take many years to 

 restore the balance thus blindly destroyed through ignorance of the economic 

 relations of our common birds and mammals." 



Detailed results of the analysis of the stomach contents of our Hawks made by 

 the ornithologists of the U. S. Department of Agriculture full}' substantiate this 

 claim of the economic value of most of these birds and are given beyond. 



Owls, because of their nocturnal habits, are even better mousers than Hawks. It 

 is their habit to disgorge, in the form of pellets, the fur and bones of their prey, and 

 in 675 such pellets, from the Barn Owl, taken in one of tlie towers of the Smithsonian 

 Institution at Washington, Dr. A. K. Fisher found the remains of 1,119 meadow or 

 field mice, 4 pine mice, 452 house mice, 134 rats, and several other species of small 

 mammals, together with a few small birds of no especial economic importance. 



No farmer whose corn in field or granary, whose potatoes and other crops have 



