USEFUL BIRDS. 3 
ing his dead crow, or hawk, or owl as he walks the village street, 
while perchance the “partridge” or “quail” or chicken shot out of 
season is snugly tucked away in the pocket of his hunting coat. 
As a matter of fact, most of our hawks and owls are decidedly 
useful; crows frequently pick up white grubs turned up by the 
plow, and the writer has seen in Minnesota both blackbirds and 
crows in the stubble eating large numbers of grasshoppers, in a 
Fie. 5. Tree swallows in enormous numbers catching gnats. 
Lake Minnetonka, September, 1914. 
bad grasshopper year. Of course both of these can be and are at 
times injurious in corn fields and in grain. And the poultry raiser, 
particularly if living near timber, will occasionally lose poultry 
on account of the presence of hawks, but practically never on ac- 
count of the two or three birds of prey whose heads are shown in 
the accompanying plates. There are one or two notoriously bad 
hawks, but the little sparrow hawk, Fig 13, is a great eater of grass- 
hoppers, and the marsh hawk, Fig. 11, so plentiful about meadows 
and on the prairie, is a constant hunter of field mice and other 
