PROTECTION OF BIRDS. 85 



Carnivorous birds, such as hawks, owls and others have 

 a very important part to play in nature. I have often mar- 

 velled at the denseness of many people in what we may call 

 the gopher districts, and at the eagerness with which they 

 will pursue their very best friend. As soon as a hawk 

 appears some one is after him, either the farmer or his son, 

 and they are not satisfied until he is caught and his wings 

 set up as ornaments. I have observed that wherever we have 

 a fair number of hawks and owls, gophers and mice are kept 

 in check. I should like very much to see in some of the acts 

 which regulate these matters that any person may be prose- 

 cuted for killing these. Even if the hawk does steal a 

 chicken or two, he earns them, for we have often and often 

 seen acres of land that would have been destroyed if it had 

 not been for these birds. 



I would like to mention here the badger as another great 

 friend of the farmer although he is not a bird. 



Then we have the insectivorous birds. Among these 

 may be named the fly catcher, wren, chickadee and the black 

 bird and others. These do a great deal of excellent w'ork in 

 spite of the bad character which they get and which they 

 partly deserve. I was unable to put my hands upon some 

 information I have somewhere about the result of an exam- 

 ination of the crops of a number of birds which had been 

 killed, and the number of insects which they were found to 

 contain was something immense, so that you see the number 

 of insects which a good healthy bird, his wife and family will 

 require is extremely great. Fly catchers live upon small 

 insects generally. The wren and other small birds live 

 largely upon the larvae of insects and upon their eggs. Then 

 there are others which keep in check the butterflies and other 

 insects of that class. A curious thing is that certain birds 

 eat certain butterflies and will drop any other kind they may 

 happen to catch, and there are some butterflies that no bird 

 will eat. A very large part of the work in killing insects is 

 in looking up grubs that would eventually make butterflies. 

 If you have watched the birds that follow the plow, you will 



