No. 20.] THE BIRDS OF CONNECTICUT. 273 



amount of weed seed. The crop of one dove secured in a rye 

 field in Warner, Tennessee, contained 7,500 seeds of Oxalis 

 stricta. Just outside the District of Columbia the bird has been 

 seen feeding in fields overgrown with pigeon grass and ragweed, 

 and especially in old cornfields, where smartweed and bindweed 

 formed tangles of sufficient extent to injure the crop. In the 

 Eastern States it has a peculiar habit of picking up pokeweed 

 seeds and crushing them in its muscular stomach. Several weeds 

 belonging to the genera Lithospermum, Oxalis, and Euphorbia 

 are also utilized as food to a somewhat lesser extent. In Cali- 

 fornia the dove feeds upon the seeds of a leguminous weed, known 

 as turkey mullein (Eremocarpus setigerus). The habit is so well 

 known in some localities that a botanist upon inquiring how he 

 could collect some seeds of this plant was advised to shoot a few 

 doves and open their crops." 



FALCONS, HAWKS, and EAGLES. 



Falconidce, Buteonidcc, and Pandionidce. 



As regard usefulness our Hawks may be roughly grouped in 

 two classes: the sailing, rather slow-flying hawks, which are 

 beneficial ; and the darting, swift-flying hawks, which are injuri- 

 ous. 1 This of course is not invariably true, but it is true in the main, 

 and perhaps may save some Buteo or Marsh Hawk, who pays 

 rent for its nest in the woods or meadow by incessant warfare 

 on mice, from paying the penalty for the attacks of the Sharp- 

 shinned and Cooper's Hawks on the poultry yard. Sportsmen 

 have always held all forms of hawks evil and acted accordingly, 

 shooting them indiscriminately, forgetting that the few birds 

 some of them may take from the coveys of quail or partridge may 

 be more than balanced by the usefulness of others; while the 

 farmers, remembering lost chickens, are loth to believe that only 

 two species of our common hawks are given to raids on domestic 

 fowls, the others only seeking them when pressed for food. For 

 the evil done by a few species, the Hawks and the Owls have 

 been held up as enemies whose destruction should bring reward, 

 and laws to this effect have been passed in different states. But 

 after these laws have remained on the statute books for varying 



x The Sparrow Hawk (Falco sparverius sparverius) must be excepted in the con- 

 demnation passed upon species related to it. 



18 



