544 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



The maintenance of the biologic balance between the many 

 diverse forms of animal life cannot be adequately discussed 

 within the limits of this volume; but a few observations on 

 some of the natural enemies of game birds will not be out of 

 place. 



There are a few animals which are so sagacious as to be 

 able to maintain themselves and become so numerous locally 

 at times as to do too much injury to the game in spite of the 

 ordinary hunter. Among these are the fox and the Crow. 



Probably the fox is nearly as numerous now in Massa- 

 chusetts as it ever was. Its chief food supply of insects, field 

 mice and other small animals is abundant, for man does not 

 hunt them, but protects them by killing the Hawks and Owls 

 and other enemies that feed on them, and it can draw at 

 need on poultry and game for additional supplies. AVe have 

 destroyed the wolves and all other large natural enemies that 

 were wont to prey on the fox, and now we discourage fox 

 hunting and trapping by protecting and increasing the deer 

 and prohibiting the use of scented bait. There are now so 

 many deer in Massachusetts that many a hunter will not hunt 

 foxes with dogs lest his dogs get on the trail of a deer, — a 

 breach of the game laws for which he is likely to have his 

 dogs shot by a game warden and himself haled into coiu't and 

 fined as a lawbreaker. As a result of these conditions foxes 

 have so increased in parts of Massachusetts and other New 

 England States that they have become a menace to the poul- 

 try raiser and a scourge to the game. I spent a day in the 

 woods in the spring of 1910 in East Northfield, Hampshire 

 County, near the Vermont line, in a fine Grouse country, and 

 did not see a Grouse or hear one drum. I visited during the 

 day two fox dens, and found feathers of the Grouse scattered 

 about the entrance of each. Mr. A. O. Howard and other 

 gunners there informed me that Grouse were then rare in a 

 large section of that region, extending well up toward Brattle- 

 boro, Vt., and that foxes were abundant. Mr. Howard told 

 me that in the winter he had seen traces showing where the 

 foxes had caught Grouse in the snow, and showed me photo- 

 graphs exhibiting fox tracks and the remains of the feast. In 



