338 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



to their food. Two or three species of hawks (those belonging to the genus Archi- 

 buteo) are notoriously the best diurnal mouse-catchers of all birds. Their habits to 

 soar over the level tracts devoted to grasses and search for their food are so well 

 known that further consideration of them is but repetition of established facts. The 

 bolder species of hawks so rarely commit depredations upon the farm-yard fowls 

 that these instances are, without doubt, the result of an individual predilection for 

 which the entire family should not be branded. The number of rabbits and mice 

 which the hawks annually destroy is simply incredible, as any really observant 

 person will admit. 



"In my own opinion, the destruction of the hawks and owls within the State of 

 Pennsylvania will, ere many years, result in an incalculable injury to the farmer, 

 who will be overrun with hordes of mice, which he will be powerless to limit, as 

 their reproductiveness, when undisturbed, progresses with astonishing rapidity. 



"It would, in my opinion, be a wise measure to have the act relating to the alleged 

 noxious birds totally repealed. 



" Very truly yours, 



"LuciEN M. TURNER." 



"AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION, 



' Committee on the Protection of North American Birds, 

 "NEW YORK, March 12, 1886. 



"Dr. B. H. WARREN : 



"DEAR SIR: The A. O. U. Committee on the Protection of Birds, recognizing 

 the great importance of the report of your Committee on the usefulness of Hawks 

 and Owls to the farmer, has instructed me to purchase, if possible, one hundred 

 copies of the paper containing your report, and to ask if we may have the privilege 

 of reprinting it, either in whole or in part, in the interest of the cause, if at any 

 time we should find it convenient to do so. Your report is directly in the line of 

 our work and could not fail to be a telling influence for good if well circulated. 



" Very truly yours, 



" EUGENE P. BICKNELL, 

 "Secretary." 



"Dr. A. K. Fisher, assistant ornithologist U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C., in a letter dated January 15, 1887, addressed to Or. B. H. War- 

 ren, says: 'Wednesday I received eight adult Red-tails and two Red-shouldered 

 Hawks from a man in Maryland. * * * I find nothing but mice and shrews in 

 their crops and stomachs (from two to five in each). I found two specimens of 

 Sorex and the following specimens of mice : Mus musculus, Hesperomys leucopus, 

 Arvicola riparius and Arvicola pinetorum. The hawks had been killed because 

 they had ' killed ' chickens and quails." 



" The committee also made inquiries of the commissioners of the different counties 

 as to the numbers of birds and mammals that have been killed and for which 

 bounties had been paid, and received answers, up to July 1, 1886, from thirty -four 

 counties. The number of hawks killed and reported up to that date was 9,237, at an 

 expense of $7,335.10, and of owls 2,499, at an expense of $1,303.90. 



"In many cases, however, the fees of the magistrates were not included, but 

 merely the bounties paid on the birds. The bounties paid for minks, weasels, foxes 

 and wildcats, raised the sums reported to $15,165.95. 



"As the time included in the returns does not come down to date, and as only 

 thirty-four out of sixty-seven counties made reports, it is believed by the committee 

 that the counties pay annually not less than $60,000 under the law of 1885, of which 

 the largest part is paid for the destruction of hawks and owls. That they are the 

 best friends of the farmer, and that their destruction is to him a great disadvantage, 

 the committee thinks that it has already shown, by the letters of eminent ornitholo- 

 gists in its report of March 4 last." 



