256 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



Let us hope, then, that preserves will never become so nu- 

 merous in this country as to bring on, through too much de- 

 struction of so-called vermin, the evils that, at times, have 

 attended such a policy of extermination in other lands. 



The Failure of Bounty Laws. 



Laws offering a price on the heads of rapacious creatures 

 have been passed from time to time in many States because of 

 the belief that such statutes would be beneficial by procuring 

 the destruction of noxious species. In most cases they have 

 failed utterly to bring about the desired result, and, in so far 

 as they have been successful, have accomplished more harm 

 than good. Dr. T. S. Palmer asserts that it is safe to say 

 that $3,000,000 were expended on bounties in the United States 

 in the five years prior to 1896.^ Probably most of this money 

 has been worse than wasted, and much of it never would have 

 been expended if the advice of competent biologists had been 

 heeded. County and State treasuries have been emptied to 

 keep the scalp hunter afield. Useful as well as noxious crea- 

 tures have been slaughtered in large numbers, but the benefits 

 to the taxpayer have been conspicuously absent, and lawless 

 hunters have been the chief beneficiaries. Most bounty laws 

 have been proposed and enacted with the ostensible purpose 

 of securing the extermination of the animals thus proscribed 

 on account of the mistaken idea that this would greatly benefit 

 the community by protecting game, birds and poultry. We 

 may grant that in settled regions the extirpation of the wolf, 

 puma and rattlesnake would be desirable, but the complete 

 destruction of birds of prey and the smaller predatory animals 

 would have precisely the opposite effect from that intended 

 and hoped for. In a recent letter to Mr. B. S. Bowdish of 

 Demarest, New Jersey, Professor H. A. Surface, State zoolo- 

 gist of Pennsylvania, writes as follows : — 



It is to be presumed that the object in paying a bounty for the heads 

 of hawks, owls, weasels and foxes is to protect birds and game animals, 

 but it will not do this. Mice and rats are more serious enemies of the 



1 Palmer, T. S.: Extermination of Noxious Animals by Bounties, Yearbook, U. S. Dept. of 

 Agr., 1896, p. 59. 



