86 WINGED ENEMIES OF WILD FOWL 



wild ducks better than the tiny grouse, but nothing seems 

 to come amiss to his hungry maw. It occasionally hap- 

 pens that an old herring gull takes to felonious practices. 

 They suck poisoned eggs eagerly, and I have seen indi- 

 vidual birds beating the hill day after day searching for 

 grouse nests. I have also known the herring gull to 

 carry off young chickens from a cottage door."* 



The Owls. The great horned owl and the snowy 

 owl are the enemies of game birds and poultry, and 

 where ducks are reared near woods they no doubt would 

 take some of them. The owls are not abundant, however, 

 in most places, and the game preserver has little to fear 

 on their account. They are interesting birds, and I would 

 hesitate to destroy them unless it clearly appeared that 

 they were doing much harm. The only owl which visited 

 me when I made my experiments with wild ducks was 

 the little screech owl, and I had no losses due to owls. 



John Burroughs calls the owl the bugaboo of birds, 

 and there can be no doubt that he creates a great dis- 

 turbance whenever he appears. The reader will find the 

 merits and demerits of owls fully discussed in the bul- 

 letin on "Hawks and Owls" issued by the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, but, since some of the speci- 

 mens were taken in places where there was no game for 

 them to. eat, the evidence, which was based on stomach 

 examinations, is not conclusive, as I have suggested. 

 Mr. Forbush, also, has well said such examinations repre- 

 sent only one meal. 



English Sparrows. The sparrows are a nuisance on 

 the game preserve, since when they are abundant they 



*"The Grouse." By H. A. Macpherson and others. Longmans, Green 

 & Co. 



