THE HAWKS AND OWLS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



INTRODUCTION. 



That birds are not only beautiful but that they perform an important 

 economic office is an abnost universal belief; and it is also j>'enerally 

 admitted that tbey should be protected by law and their increase en- 

 couraged in every way possible. To the farmer, however, it is well 

 known that certain kinds, as crows, robios, blackbirds, rice birds, and 

 some others, are more or less injurious, and at times do great damage to 

 the growing or ripened crops. 



When certain birds are known to be harmful to agricultural interests, 

 the fiirmer has a right to ask that the protection of law be withdrawn 

 from such species, and even that means be taken to diminish their 

 numbers. At first it might seem an easy matter to class birds into two 

 great groups, the injurious species and the beneficial species ; but in 

 reality it is very difficult, for however harmful a species may be at one 

 season of the year or in a certain region, it may be quite the reverse at 

 another season or in a different region. Thus the bobolink is one of 

 the most highly-prized visitors in the Northern States, and the damage 

 it does to the crops there is so infinitesimal that this weighs nothing 

 against the attractions of its presence and the beauty of its song; in 

 the Southern States this same bobolink, so changed in plumage as to 

 easily i^ass under an alias, the rice-bird, does immense damage to the 

 rice crop — a damage which amounts to over a million of dollars a year. 



Another example of the beneficial-injurious species is the crow. 

 What farmer needs to be told of the unprincipled conduct of Jim Crow 

 at and immediately after corn-planting time. The ever-j)resent scare- 

 crow bears mute witness to the crow's fondness for corn and his thieving 

 habits. But when the corn is past danger the crow cbanges from an 

 obnoxious to an exemplary member of bird society, and the war he 

 wages on the cutworm earns him no scanty meed of praise from the 

 grass farmer. 



Thus it will be seen that the division of our birds into beneficial and 

 harmful kinds is not the easy task it seems, and that even farmers may 

 differ widely as to the status of a certain kind. However they may 

 fail to agree concerning the species just mentioned and others that might 

 be named, there seems to be but one opinion the broad land over as to 

 the status of the hawks and owls; they at least are believed to be 



