40 



poisoning of other birds which were destroyed in great numbers 

 because they attacked the crops. The poisoning of these birds, 

 he believed, permitted a great increase of destructive insects, 

 particularly locusts. A farmer from Wisconsin informed me 

 that after the blackbirds in his vicinity had been killed off by 

 poison, white grubs increased in number and destroyed the 

 grass roots so that he personally lost $400 in one year from this 

 cause. 



About twelve years ago Mr. Gardiner Hammond, who then 

 owned a large sheep farm on the Island of Martha's Vineyard, 

 informed me that the crows were killing his young lambs, and 

 that he had instituted a campaign against crows by offering 

 50 cents each for their heads. He said that this campaign had 

 been so successful that the payment of the bounty almost 

 bankrupted him at the time. The crows had nearly all dis- 

 appeared from his immediate vicinity. A few years later he in- 

 quired if I could tell him what was the matter with the grass 

 in his pastures. The roots had been cut off and the upper part 

 of the turf had been separated from the lower part. The grass 

 in great patches was dead and could be rolled up from the turf 

 like a carpet. I reminded him that I had advised against the 

 crow campaign, and he was now seeing the result of shooting 

 too many crows. In all probability, only a few crows had been 

 killing his lambs, and if he had set a hunter to watch and shoot 

 the actual culprits he would have saved his lambs and also his 

 pastures. The cause of the destruction of the grass was an 

 extreme multiplication of the larvae of the May beetle which cut 

 off the roots. Crows are very destructive to these beetles, and 

 when their repressive force was removed, the beetles multiplied 

 exceedingly and destroyed the grass roots. 



A similar but much more impressive account of the devasta- 

 tion of grasslands by grubs following the almost complete de- 

 struction of birds comes from Australia. 



Mr. C. W. Beebe, curator of birds at the New York Zoo- 

 logical Park, received a letter from Sydney, New South Wales, 

 dated September 12, 1908, in which the writer, Mr. Richard 

 W r alter Tomalin, says: 



In the sub-districts of Robertson and Kangaloon, in the Illawarra dis- 

 trict of New South Wales, what ten years ago was a waving mass of Eng- 



