VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAN BUCKLAND. 451 



the unanimous testimony of careful students of birds and their food 

 habits to the effect that almost all hawks and owls are beneficial, a 

 widespread prejudice still exists against them. They are slain as 

 relentlessly as if they were enemies instead of friends of the farmer. 



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 incalculable 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 gTasses, to ground-growing 

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

 this list of crimes, certain rodents arfe active agents in carrying and 

 disseminating the germs of plague and other diseases. 



Here in England — though on account of their small size and se- 

 cretive habits they are often undiscerned by man's dull eyes — they 

 swarm in such numbers in the fields and hedgerows that the damage 

 they do must prove a steady drain on the resources of the farmer. 



The number of small rodents eaten by 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 departure 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 long time in the nest, and 

 require a great quantity of food. During this period the resources 

 of the parents must be taxed excessively in the effort to satisfy the 

 hunger cravings of their offspring, and it is not to be wondered at if 

 some individuals are forced occasionally to snap up a chicken. But 

 what is the worth of the chicken, or of the young pheasant, occasion- 

 ally taken, compared with the hundreds of thousands of pounds' 

 worth of damage that is wrought in the orchards and fields by 

 rodents that hawks and owls, had they been spared, would have fed 

 upon for the maintenance of their species ? 



In 1885 the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act, known 

 as the "scalp act," which provided a bounty of 50 cents each on 

 hawks and owls killed within the State limits, and a fee of 20 cents 

 to the notary taking the affidavit. As the result of this act $90,000 

 was paid in bounties during the year and a half subsequent to the 

 passage of the act. An irruption of small rodents followed and did 

 damage to the agricultural interests of the State amounting to 

 $3,850,000. And even these figures, enormous as they are, do not 

 represent the entire loss. Years must elapse before the balance of 

 nature, which was destroyed, can be restored. 



In Montana the destruction of hawks and owls was so complete 

 that rodents, freed from the pressure of their natural check, became 



