in the fact that the farmers of the region had been complaining 

 of mice and were about to spend money exterminating them. 



Even the great horned owl generally regarded as the meanest 

 of all flying killers gets credit for some good deeds in Mr. 

 Burleigh's book. He was studying quail along the Gulf Coast a 

 few years ago at a time when the birds' eggs were being devoured 

 wholesale by skunks. Investigation showed that the great horned 

 owls there were only a few left were the quail's only friend. 

 They delight in skunk meat. Mr. Burleigh examined one that 

 had eaten so many skunks it had to be handled out of doors. 



Although he is in the vanguard of the minority party where 

 predatory birds are concerned, Mr. Burleigh does not auto- 

 matically place a halo on every feathered killer. He has seen 

 more than one hawk with a chicken in its claws, more than one 

 owl ripping up a peaceful nest, and more than one kingfisher 

 with a trout in its bill. 



"When a bird becomes a persistent killer," Mr. Burleigh says, 

 "there is, of course, justification for getting rid of it. But seldom 

 is there any justification for shooting hawks and owls out in 

 the woods." 



With his name attached to 175 books, pamphlets, and techni- 

 cal papers on birds, and with twenty years in the Wildlife Serv- 

 ice, Mr. Burleigh finds himself justified in applying Father 

 Flanagan's philosophy that there is no such thing as an all-bad 

 boy to some of the birds that get the smoky end of the gun from 

 trigger-happy humans. He will come to their defense just as 

 readily as a poet will write about a nightingale. 



"Some individual birds have bad habits," he says, "but so do 

 some people. Just because a left-handed thug cracks a safe do 

 we jug all left-handed people? The important thing is to con- 

 sider the eating habits of a whole species, not those of a single 

 bird. 



"Besides," here Mr. Burleigh went back to hawks and came 

 up with a generally unknown aspect of their character "hawks 

 get penalized for having a sense of humor. I've seen them swoop 

 down and scatter a covey of birds without touching a single one. 

 They probably fly off chuckling with glee. Many people see this 



76 Red-tailed hawk 



