150 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



could be much blacker than this. The Cooper's 

 hawk, which inhabits the whole United States, is 

 an unqualified pest, deserving of swift and sure 

 destruction. 



The American Goshawk,, chiefly confined to 

 Canada and Alaska, is a wholesale destroyer of 

 game-birds, serves no useful purpose, and deserves 

 destruction. Fortunately, it is nowhere numerous 

 and is rarely seen. 



The Duck-Hawk or Peregrine Falcon, inhabit- 

 ing all America north of Chili, is another hated 

 destroyer of game-birds and song-birds, with no 

 extenuating circumstances save at very long inter- 

 vals a lonesome mouse or insect. Each bird of this 

 species deserves treatment with a choke-bore gun. 

 First shoot the male and female, then collect the 

 nest, the young or the eggs, whichever may be 

 present. They all look best in collections. 



The Pigeon-Hawk, second from the smallest 

 species of our hawks, is fearfully destructive to our 

 best beloved song-birds. It kills thrushes, gold- 

 finches, vireos, bobolinks, sparrows, swifts and 

 many other species. Kill it without mercy! Out 

 of 56 specimens examined, 41 contained song-birds. 

 In shooting this dull-gray bird, be careful not to 

 kill the beautiful little sparrow-hawk dull blue, 

 bright rusty brown, white, black and salmon color 

 because it is a phenomenal destroyer of insects. 

 The sparrow-hawk is probably the most valuable 

 of all our hawks, and also the most beautiful. 



