IOWA ORNITHOLOGIST. 



35 



necessary destruction of them? 

 And if so, how can the}' be pro- 

 tected? 



I am sure that nearly everyone 

 enjoys Hstening to the song birds, 

 but here in America we often do 

 not consider the beauty of any- 

 thing or the pleasure it furnishes, 

 as much as the dollars and cents 

 it produces or saves. So the first 

 thing to be decided is, are birds, 

 financially speaking, beneficial? 

 A recent number of the Youth's 

 Companion had an article on the 

 protection of birds. It says "We 

 have thirty species of insects 

 which subsist on our common 

 garden vegetables and our apple 

 orchards have fifty kinds of in- 

 sect enemies." It then names 

 the birds that are making steady 

 warfare against the pests, and 

 adds, "The estimated annual des- 

 truction of crops by insects in the 

 United States is more than four 

 hundred millions of dollars." 

 Now the more birds that are kill- 

 ed, the greater becomes the dam- 

 age done by vermin, and it is 

 plain to be seen that if the birds 

 were allowed to multiply it would 

 not be long before they would 

 save to the United States this 

 four hundred million dollars. 

 Would not this be a benefit? 



Concerning the usefulness of 

 birds many persons, especially 



culturists, seem to have errone- 

 ous ideas. Every farmer keeps 

 one or more cats to rid his build- 

 ings of rats and mice, and he, 

 willingly compensates them for 

 their services by giving them a 

 liberal supply of food; but many 

 of these estimable men fairly get 

 beside themselves if a hawk robs 

 them of a chicken. Now I claim 

 that the hawks kill enough nox- 

 ious animals to more than rec- 

 ompense them for the loss of 

 their chickens. To sustain this 

 statement let me refer you to the 

 time when the legislature of 

 Pennsylvania passed the "Scalp 

 Act." This act placed a bounty 

 of fifty cents on every hawk and 

 owl that was killed. What was 

 the result. Well, in eighteen 

 months the state paid out no less 

 than ninety thousand dollars in 

 cash and saved to the farmers 

 one thousand, eight hundred and 

 seventy-one dollars in chickens. 

 This made eighteen dollars 

 apiece for every chicken that was 

 saved. Rather expensive poul- 

 try. But this was not the worst, 

 for as fast as the hawks and owls 

 decreased, the rodents and other 

 pernicious animals increased, and 

 that year the loss of crops which 

 the department of agriculture at- 

 tributed to the excessive number 

 of injurious animals was estimat- 



