188 



THE OOLOQIST 



now every hunter and boy that sees a 

 Vulture must shoot it. Most hunters 

 say when they kill a Vulture, "We 

 have done our country a great deed 

 because these birds carry disease and 

 we hunters ought to get a large bounty 

 for killing them." I think a man with 

 such little brain of sense to say this, 

 is lacking in the upper story. I have 

 saved many Vulture by begging hunt- 

 ers not to kill the useful bird that God 

 put here to protect us from disease. 



I look at it this way, — if a Vulture 

 does carry a little disease, why do we 

 have to destroy them? When a com- 

 mon sense will tell us that they de- 

 stroy ten times as much disease with- 

 out carrying a little with him. There 

 ought to be a fifty dollar fine for kill- 

 ing a Vulture, and if I had anything to 

 do with making laws, I sure would 

 make this one stick. I have carefully 

 studied the Vulture for a good many 

 years and haven't been able to see 

 where they have hurt this country, but 

 I can see where they are a benefit to 

 the southern states. To prove it there 

 are more flies and other disease 

 spreaders raised in dead animals tnan 

 ever before. When the Vultures were 

 plentiful, they would destroy these 

 breeding grounds of disease, but when 

 few are left do not succeed. We can- 

 not blame the Vultures; we can only 

 blame these so-called hunters and 

 ignorant boys that shoot everything 

 that has hair or feathers. You can't 

 go along a country road anywhere in 

 this part without finding the remains 

 of a disease destroying Vulture. They 

 were placed here for the good of the 

 people, but the people can't see it, so 

 the poor Vulture that does no one 

 harm has to be shot and poisoned. 



Speaking of poison, a good many 

 Vultures are destroyed in this way. 

 Ranchmen and farmers poison dead 

 animals intended for wolf bait but the 

 first one to fall prey to the poison is 



the innocent Vultures. Speaking of 

 law again, I think there ought to be 

 a fine for poisoning dead animals. Be- 

 sides the loss of Vultures by poison, 

 many ranchers have lost their best 

 sheep or goat dog, which they value at 

 five hundred dollars or more. 



Another destroyer of the Vulture is 

 the trapper, especially the wolf trap- 

 per of this country. They are caught 

 on every trap line. Instead of letting 

 them go, the trapper kills them and 

 curses the innocent bird for snapping 

 his traps, when it would be much 

 cheaper to let them go. I am not con- 

 demning the wolf trapper, because I 

 am one myself, but I am condemning 

 him for killing the Vulture that acci- 

 dentally gets in his trap. Anywhere 

 around here you can see a few Vul- 

 tures flying high or on a fence post, 

 but not long ago they were not a few 

 but were plentiful and always ready to 

 do the people a great favor by destroy- 

 ing all dead and diseased animals that 

 were to be found. 



It is just like Mr. Pope said, to save 

 the Vultures, we must act now, be- 

 cause they are going fast. I advise 

 anyone that has Vulture eggs to stick 

 with them becaus if the killing of Vul- 

 tures is not stopped, the eggs will be 

 valuable and hard to get. We may be 

 able to impress on some people the 

 benefits of the Vulture, if the other 

 readers will wake up and give their 

 ideas on the best law-abiding birds of 

 the United States. 



Book Notes. 



John F. Honecker of Spokane, 

 Wash., has issued a small fourteen 

 page booklet entitled "North American 

 Ornithology Number 1," devoted to the 

 Red-tailed Hawk, which is a review of 

 the life history of this bird nicely got- 

 ten out. 



The University of California in its 

 Zoological series has issued a paper by 



