61 



to the farmers of the State as a destroyer of mice and insects. 

 He therefore estimated that the pests left alive by the destruc- 

 tion of 128,571 hawks and owls had cost the people of the State 

 in that year and a half $3,850,000 in addition to the $90,000 

 paid out in bounties. Dr. Merriam's eminent position as a 

 scientist lends weight to his estimates. 



A Michigan man boasts of having killed over 4,000 hawks, 

 and publishes his photograph together with those of 11 dead 

 hawks nailed to a barn door, all killed by him in one day. 



Mr. J. Warren Jacobs observing this photograph is led to 

 remark that nearly three-quarters of the prey of the red- 

 shouldered hawk consists of field mice, and almost all the 

 remaining fourth consists of insects. This report is based upon 

 examinations of the stomachs of many hundreds of specimens 

 by naturalists in different parts of the United States, and par- 

 ticularly on examinations made by the Biological Survey of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture. Mr. Jacobs says 

 that- 



The sacrifice of these 11 red-shouldered hawks, in one day, spared the 

 lives of possibly, if not actually, 77 field mice daily (7 for each hawk), 

 or 28,105 during the year. Each of these 28,105 mice would have de- 

 voured one-half ounce of grass tendrils and rootlets daily, totaling 878 

 pounds, or the equivalent of one-half that much hay or pasture grass in 

 a day, equaling 239 pounds, or 43 tons in one year. The value of 

 43^ tons of hay is about $696. Thus each of these 11 hawks would 

 have prevented the destruction of $63 worth of hay by mice in one year. 

 To these figures should be added $15 saved by each hawk in destroying 

 other mammal pests and insects. l 



These hawks, says Mr. Jacobs, are called chicken hawks, but 

 do not deserve the name, for less than 4 per cent of their food 

 consists of poultry and game birds. 



Mr. C. C. Clute relates the following instance of money saved 

 through attracting birds: 



I know one farmer in particular who lost during one summer three rows 

 of com 40 rods long. The corn grew next to a fence-row heavily sodded 

 with bluegrass, which produced swarms of grasshoppers. For the sake of 

 the experiment alone, for this farmer was a skeptic, last spring he put up 

 21 bird houses, placed 2 rods apart, on the fence along the 40 rods. The 

 houses were some that he and the boys had made, during the winter 



i Jacobs, J. Warren: Observations by the Way, Waynesburg, Pa., Feb. 18, 1916. (Apparently 

 Mr. Jacobs, figures are too low and the quantity of hay should be doubled.) 



