No. 4.] DECREASE OF BIRDS. r)2!» 



scribed. When in 188ti the people of Pennsylvania became 

 aware of the injurious eti'ects of the scalp act, Dr. C Hart 

 Merriam, then ornithologist and mammalogist of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, his assistant, Dr. A. K. 

 Fisher, and Dr. B. H. Warren, examined over three hundred 

 and fifty stomachs of the hawks and owls killed under the 

 act. Ninety-five per cent of the food materials of these 

 birds was found to consist, not of poultry and game, but of 

 "mice and other destructive mammals, grasshoppers and 

 many injiu^ious beetles." Dr. Merriam says, in his report 

 for 1886: "By virtue of this act, about ninety thousand 

 dollars has been paid in bounties during the year and a half 

 that has elapsed since the law went into effect. This rep- 

 resents the destruction of at least 128,571 of the above- 

 mentioned animals, most of which were hawks and owls. 

 Granting that five thousand chickens are killed annually in 

 Pennsylvania by hawks and owls, and that they are worth 

 twenty-five cents each (a lilieral estimate, in view of the 

 fact that a large proportion of them are killed when very 

 young), the total loss would be $1,250, and the poultry 

 killed in a year and a half would be worth $1,875. Hence 

 it appears that in the past eighteen months the State of 

 Pennsylvania has expended $90,000 to save its farmers a 

 loss of $1,875. But this estimate by no means represents 

 the actual loss to the farmer and the tax payer of the State." 

 Dr. Merriam then g-oes on to show the vast loss that must 

 result to the people of Pennsylvania, who, by killing these 

 hawks and owls, have saved the field mice and other harmful 

 creatures on which the birds otherwise would have preyed. 

 The Legislature of Pennsylvania appointed a State ornithol- 

 ogist, and repealed the scalp act. We do not need a " scalp 

 act" in Massachusetts. 



Dukes County and the town of Lakeville now pay boun- 

 ties on hawks and owls. This unwise policy should be 

 discontinued. There are many sections in eastern Massa- 

 chusetts where hawks and owls are becoming rare. During 

 the winter of 1903-04 many farmers had theii- young fruit 

 trees ruined by the mice, which ate away the l)ark. If this 

 continues, a demand for the protection of hawks and owls 



