98 Wild Bird Guests 



shoot these valuable hawks, because hawks of 

 an entirely different species have at some time 

 carried off his chickens. 



Owls, as a class, are even more beneficial 

 than the hawks. They constitute what might 

 be termed "the night shift" of the pest-killing 

 forces, coming on about dusk, and continuing 

 their work until dawn, when the hawks again 

 take up the good work. Having very acute 

 hearing, and also wonderful powers of vision, 

 which are, in most species, keenest in the dusk, 

 they are able to capture many nocturnal animals 

 which are passed over by the hawks. Mice and 

 rats, moles and shrews, rabbits, squirrels, gophers, 

 and prairie dogs, besides many kinds of injurious 

 insects, constitute the principal food of our owls. 

 As Dr. Fisher has pointed out there are some 

 owls which are not wholly beneficial. Certain 

 species, when opportunity offers, are destructive 

 to poultry. There is this to be said, however, 

 that if poultry is properly housed at night there 

 is little to fear from owls. 



The barn owl, chiefly a southern species, is one 

 of the most useful of all birds. It lives almost 

 exclusively on small mammals, principally de- 

 structive ones. Fisher says that in the South 

 Atlantic and Gulf States it feeds extensively on 

 the cotton rat, and that the common rat also 



