108 Mr. J. Buckliind on 



The destructive habits of the small rodents, which are the 

 natural prey of Hawks and Owls, are much the same all the 

 world round. They do an incalcula])le amount of damage 

 to standing corn, to corn in the stook or when stacked, to 

 grain, to root crops when growing, or when piled on the 

 ground, or stored in pits, to orchards and forest trees, to the 

 roots of clover and other grasses, to ground-growing fruit, 

 and to gardens, both flower and vegetable. In addition to 

 this list of crimes, certain rodents are active agents in 

 carrying and disseminating the germs of plague and other 

 diseases. 



Here in Enoland — thouoh on account of their small size 

 and secretive habits they are often undiscerned by man's 

 dull eyes — they swarm in such numbers in the fields and 

 hedge-rows that the damage they do must prove a steady 

 drain on the resources of the farmer. 



The number of small rodents eaten b}-- the rapacious 

 birds is almost as remarkable in proportion to their size as 

 is the number of insects eaten by small insectivorous birds. 

 During the summer of 1890 a pair of Barn-Owls occupied a 

 tower in a building at Washington. After their ch'parture, 

 there were found in the regurgitated pellets, with which the 

 floor was strewn, 454 skulls of small rodents. 



The young of Hawks and Owls remain a lung time in the 

 nest, and require a great quantity of food. During this 

 period the resources of the parents must be taxed exces- 

 sively in the effort to satisfy the hunger cravings of their 

 ()ffsi)rin<T, and it is not to be wondered at if some individuals 

 arc forced occasionally to snaj) up a chicken. But what is 

 the worth of the chicken, or of the young pheasant, 

 occasionallv taken compared with the hundreds of thousanils 

 of pounds' worth of damage that is wrouglit in the orchards 

 and field by rodents that Hawks and Owls, had they been 

 spared, would have fed upon for the maintenance of their 

 species ? 



At one time the destruction of bird life in the United 

 ►States was trulv lamentable, but the old order has changed 



