46 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub, Doc. 



dred and fifty of the birds on which bounties had been paid 

 were examined by Dr. Warren and by Dr. G. Hart Merriam, 

 government ornithologist at Washington, or his assistants, 

 and that it was found that ninety-live per cent of the food 

 of these hawks and owls consisted not of poultry or game, 

 but of field mice and other destructive mammals or grass- 

 hoppers and other destructive insects. The scalp act was 

 repealed at the next session of the Legislature. 



Ever since the settlement of this country hawks and owls 

 have been proscribed by both farmer and law maker, and 

 shot at sight by nearly every one who owned a gun. They 

 have been classed as the thieves, thuffs and assassins among 

 birds ; but many of them are now known to be useful in the 

 highest degree to agriculture, while only a few can possibly 

 be classed as injurious in the main. There are a few hawks 

 which are inveterate enemies of poultry. The goshawk, 

 Cooper's hawk and the sharp-shinned hawk are very destruc- 

 tive to poultry, birds and game. The first occasionally win- 

 ters with us, and in that season of scarcity secures more or 

 less poultry and much game. The other two are noted for 

 their depredations mainly in the spring, when their growing 

 young in the nests require a great amount of animal food for 

 their sustenance. The red-tailed hawk occasionally takes 

 poultry at this season, and novs^ and then a marsh hawk 

 becomes addicted to chicken stealing ; but as a rule they and 

 all the other hawks common in Massachusetts, with the 

 exception of the first three mentioned, are now believed to 

 be beneficial to agriculture, some of them highly so. Of the 

 owls, there is but one — the great horned owl — which feeds 

 to any great extent on poultry. This species is so hunted 

 that it is fast becoming rare in this State. If fowls are shut 

 up at night, this bird will seldom secure any. The hawks 

 and owls not only benefit the farmer by constituting a check 

 on the too great increase of mice, rats, squirrels, hares, 

 moles and other destructive rodents, but they also assist 

 greatly in checking insect outbreaks, as they feed on such 

 injurious insects as May beetles, the larger caterpillars, 

 grasshoppers and locusts. 



The volume entitled " The Hawks and Owls of the United 

 States," by Dr. A. K. Fisher, one of the ornithologists of 



