CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 545 



a country where foxes are so numerous and Grouse so scarce 

 foxes must check the increase of the game. Complaints re- 

 garding similar conditions have come from many sections of 

 the State, and poultry raisers complain loudly of damage to 

 their business by foxes. The fox is useful as a mouse destroyer, 

 but wherever its numbers are excessive the game will suffer. 



The Crow, like the fox, is so astute that its numbers some- 

 times increase locally until it exercises a serious restraint upon 

 the multiplication of game. It destroys both eggs and young 

 of Grouse, Bob-whites, Ducks and other birds. Flocks of 

 Crows have been known to attack and kill full-grown Grouse 

 and hares. The Crow is useful as a destroyer of insects in 

 the grass-land, but it is not a bird for the game preserver to 

 protect. 



The few bird -killing Hawks which inhabit Massachusetts are 

 always fair game for the gunner, and are kept within reasonable 

 bounds. The most pernicious enemies of birds come from the 

 ranks of those animals which are introduced from foreign 

 countries by man. In this list we may include the cat, the 

 dog, the rat and the hog. 



Cats which have run wild are known to be most mis- 

 chievous. They roam the woods and fields in countless num- 

 bers. I have known fourteen, half fed, to be kept on one farm. 

 Thousands are abandoned every year at summer homes in 

 the country when the owners go back to the city. Cats are 

 so destructive that their introduction to islands in the sea 

 has been followed by the absolute extinction of certain birds, 

 rabbits and other small animals. European gamekeepers 

 say that nothing can be done on a game preserve until the 

 cats are killed. 



A gentleman in Massachusetts who undertook to raise 

 Pheasants a mile from any village found that his gamekeeper 

 was obliged to kill a great number of cats. The cat, being an 

 introduced animal, is far more injurious to game than the 

 native natural enemies, and should be eliminated so far as 

 possible from the field. 



Dogs, when allowed to run at large in the woods and fields 

 in spring and summer, destroy numbers of birds' eggs and 



