A TLEA FOK ri;OTECTIN(} OUR NATIVE lURDS. 185 



In accordance with this rcsoUitiou, the Board of Agriculture 

 emploj'ed Dr. B. H. Warren, State Ornithologist of Pennsylvania, 

 to prepare and deliver a lecture on the birds of Massachusetts, at 

 their public winter meeting in Worcester, December 3, 1890. 

 This lecture and the lengthy discussion which followed it will be 

 found in the report of the Board of Agriculture of Massachusetts 

 for 1890. In addition, the Board, by its Secretary, made careful 

 inquiries of intelligent persons in our own State, and corresponded 

 with ornithologists in other States and foreign countries. As a 

 result they reported that, as a whole, the native birds of Massachu- 

 setts are benefactors. The small losses occasioned by the raids 

 of some species upon our fruit trees, gardens, grain fields, and 

 poultry yards are I'epaid man}^ fold by the benefits resulting from 

 the destruction by them of injurious insects, field mice, and other 

 vermin that are a detriment to agriculture. It is, however, the 

 opinion of ornithologists that crows cause a greater loss in the 

 cornfields, and by destroying the eggs and young of useful birds, 

 than they are capable of repaying by the exercise of their good 

 qualities. But most of our birds of prey, as hawks and owls, by 

 their services in the destruction of field vermin, are thought to 

 more than make good all damage they cause in the poultry yard 

 and otherwise. 



The English sparrow, {Passer domesticus) was the subject of 

 extended inquiry, and it seemed well substantiated that its character 

 is wholly bad, and that it should be exterminated. This led to the 

 consideration of methods to secure that desirable object. The 

 system of state bounties was quite fully discussed in Dr. Warren's 

 lecture, and thoroughly condemned, as an utterly futile expedient. 

 He quoted many facts from reports of investigations made in 

 Pennsylvania, which proved that great frauds were successfully 

 practiced under the bounty law of 1885, styled the "Scalp Act,'* 

 under which about 6150,000 were drawn from the public treasury, 

 as bounties for the destruction of wild-cats, foxes, minks, weasels,, 

 hawks, and owls other than the saw-whet {Nydea Acadica) ; the 

 rate being two dollars for each wild-cat, one dollar for each fox,, 

 and fifty cents per head for all others. Their investigations con- 

 vinced the inquiry commission that about $80,000 of this money 

 was paid for the " scalps and ears" of hawks and owls, and mostly 

 of species more beneficial than harmful. Furthermore, the igno- 

 rance of officers who dislmrsed the mone}^ in many cases subjected 



