528 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



more than fifty thousand dollars in bounties for ground squir- 

 rels and prairie dogs. As at that time these animals had 

 not decreased perceptibly, a special session of the Legisla- 

 ture was called to repeal the law, lest it bankrupt the State. 



While the effect of bounty laws, in general, is bad, the 

 practical operation of laws directed at particular species is 

 certainly vicious. We may regard a bounty on the heads 

 of cats as impracticable, for obvious reasons, not the least 

 among which might be the encouragement of a new indus- 

 try, the raising of kittens for the bounty. A bounty on 

 cats, foxes, weasels and skunks would encourage trapping, 

 which is already exterminating some of the smaller fur- 

 bearing animals. The experience of States which have 

 placed bounties on the head of the English sparrow has not 

 been encouraging. These acts are said to have resulted in 

 a slight decrease of the sparrows, and the destruction of 

 great numbers of native birds killed and ignorantly offered 

 for bounty. To put a bounty on the head of the sparrow is 

 practically equivalent to offering a bounty on all our native 

 sparrows, many of the warblers, the thrushes, wrens and a 

 few other species. Anything that at a distance looks like 

 a sparrow would be killed, and probably in most cases the 

 bounty would be paid, unless a competent naturalist could be 

 appointed in each town or county seat to pass on the heads. 



If we offer a bounty on the crow, most of our native 

 crows which do the mischief probably will escape, and the 

 bounty will be paid mainly on birds that came from the 

 north in winter. The difficulty of killing crows in the sum- 

 mer prevents many being taken at that time. In the winter 

 most of the crows that summer here probably go farther 

 south, their places being taken by crows from farther north. 

 It is at this time that crows are most readily killed, either 

 by baiting or at their roosts ; and therefore most of the 

 crows offered for bounty would be those which never do any 

 injury here, while the guilty ones would escape. 



A bounty on hawks or owls would work injury to the 

 agricultural interests. Hawks, with a few exceptions, are 

 useful birds. Owls, being probably among the most useful 

 of all birds, should be protected by law, rather than pro- 



