8 The Bulletin. 



worms appeared in the meadows, which devoured the grass and did 

 great damage, the people abated their enmity, for they had observed 

 that those birds lived chiefly on these worms before the maize is 

 ripe, and consequently extirpated them." 



Of recent years the study of the relationship of birds to agricul- 

 ture has revealed many facts which are having a decided influence in 

 changing public sentiment regarding many birds which were formerly 

 regarded as largely if not wholly detrimental. The most marked 

 example is probably in reference to the real value of hawks and 

 owls on the farm. There have been recorded in North Carolina nine 

 species of hawks and eight kinds of owls. Many people have recog- 

 nized but little distinction between these, and tens of thousands of 

 these useful creatures have been killed by persons who sincerely be- 

 lieved they were doing the country a service. We now know that 

 a very large per cent of the food of the sparrow hawk consists of 

 grasshoppers and other insects. The red-shouldered hawk feeds to a 

 large extent on field mice, shews, young rabbits, and other injurious 

 vermin. To kill a sparrow hawk, therefore, means an increased 

 opportunity for the grasshoppers to eat the grass, and to kill the red- 

 shouldered hawk means that a further invitation is extended to an- 

 noying rodents to increase and gnaw the fruit trees or eat the grain 

 in the field. We are very prone to think only of the chicken or 

 game bird which some "chicken-eating" individual hawk takes, and 

 at once condemn all hawks of all species. A wiser course would 

 probably be to make some study of the order of birds known as 

 Baptores with a view to learning to differentiate between our enemies 

 and real friends. 



Writing of hawks in a recent Year Book of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, one of the government officials says: "Of 

 late years the acreage under cultivation in the United States has in- 

 creased rapidly. With increased acreage the number of rodents has 

 multiplied accordingly, because of the abundance of nutritious food 

 and also because their natural enemies have been destroyed by man. 

 The services of hawks and owls were never so much needed as now, 

 and these faithful helpers of man are likely to be more needed in the 

 future; yet thousands of hawks and owls are yearly slaughtered be- 

 cause the part they play in nature's scheme is misunderstood or ig- 

 nored. Unquestionably, individual hawks that have learned their 

 way to the poultry yard should be summarily dealt with, but because 

 occasional individuals of two or three species destroy chickens it is 

 manifestly unfair to take vengeance on the whole tribe. The very 

 name of 'hen hawk' is a misnomer so far as the bird to which it 

 is chiefly applied is concerned. Moreover, it is made the excuse by 

 the farmer's boy and the sportsman for killing every hawk, large or 

 small, that flies. Thousands of these useful birds are killed annually 



