The Birds and Poets 275 



all of which are very damaging to growing crops. 

 It is only after these birds have been long teased 

 and plundered that they finally abandon the old 

 station where the colony has made its home, but 

 this farmer was devilishly persistent, and the birds 

 finally left for parts unknown, to return no more. 

 The colony has not been heard of in this area since. 



The crow as we have elsewhere observed is 

 another bird which is misjudged by the farmer. 

 The popular idea among farmers is that he eats up 

 much of the newly planted seed corn, and he there- 

 fore gets blamed for all the empty hills in the corn- 

 field. As a matter of fact, the crow will seldom 

 eat the dry kernels of seed corn, unless it is broken 

 up, either by his own beak or by other means, and 

 he seldom takes the trouble to break it up himself 

 if other food is available. The fact is that being a 

 very omnivorous bird, he by no means depends 

 upon corn or other grain to gratify his appetite, 

 but eats carrion, fish, birds' eggs, and many injuri- 

 ous insects and worms. He is unquestionably more 

 beneficial than harmful. 



The buteos, including the red-shouldered and 

 red-tailed hawks, commonly called "chicken 

 hawks," destroy very few chicks. They feed 

 chiefly upon crop-destroying rodents. There are 

 about seventy-three species and sub-species of 

 hawks in America, and only six of these are injuri- 

 ous, yet in the popular mind every hawk that 

 appears in the sky is a "chicken hawk" deserving 

 death. Only two of these six are at all common 



