The Red-Shouldered Hawk iii: 



very small leaven of facts, magnified by the prejudice and ignorance of ages, has swollen 

 to a very mountain of crime. Without reason they are called "Chicken-hawk" and 

 "Hen-hawk,'' simply because a farmer from time to time may miss from his flock of barn- 

 yard fowl a pullet or hen, or may find their scattered feathers where a tragedy has 

 occurred. The farmer does not for a moment consider that this crime may have been com- 

 mitted by a fox, skunk, mink, weasel, cat or some other carnivorous animal, but at once 

 attributes it to a Hawk, and immediately registers a vow to kill every Hawk that he sees 

 without reflecting that by so doing he may be killing one of his best friends. 



Farmers are not the only persons who have a prejudice against Hawks, for it is unfor- 

 tunately too true that a large percentage of sportsmen attribute the rapidly diminishing 

 numbers of game-birds to Hawks, and consequently never fail to kill one when an oppor- 

 tunity occurs. There is really very little doubt but that an increase in the number of 

 Hawks of the Buteo class would result in an increase of game-birds, as the Hawks would 

 reduce the number of small predaceous mammals that are so destructive to the young of 

 game-birds. 



It is certainly a very short-sighted policy on the part of any one to condemn Hawks on 

 hearsay evidence; in human affairs no court will permit the admission of this kind of testi- 

 mony, and why should it be considered when birds are on trial ? The proper method to 

 judge of the good or evil that Hawks do is to consider the results of a thorough and scien- 

 tific investigation of the food of a large number of Hawks collected from widely separated 

 sections of the country and at all seasons of the year. Under certain circumstances an 

 individual Hawk may be guilty of doing harm owing to his particular surroundings, but 

 that is no reason for condemning all Hawks, any more than it would be for charging with 

 crime every citizen in a village because one misguided individual was caught robbing 

 the bank. 



The subject of the economic status of Hawks is one of great importance, and the agri- 

 culturist who is not willing to carefully examine all of the evidence presented certainly is 

 not living up to the advanced ideas of the twentieth century, but is still groping in dark- 

 ness. The wide-awake farmer investigates every problem that will enable him to increase 

 his products a pound or a bushel. If it can be proved that Hawks destroy enormous 

 quantities of insects and vermin that are known to be a serious menace to agriculture, 

 should they not be protected as valuable auxiliaries to this industry, which is by far the 

 most important and valuable of all that engage the attention of man. It is purposed to 

 present to the farmers of the country as rapidly as possible a series of illustrated leaflets 

 giving the true economic status of the Hawks of North America, and it is hoped that 

 every person who reads the series will carefully weigh the evidence furnished, and if it is 

 shown by unimpeachable scientific facts that the species treated of is of value, let the 

 farmer not only protect the Hawk in question but insist that his neighbors shall do likewise. 



The following evidence regarding Red-shouldered Hawks is taken from the report of 

 the Ornithologist of the State Board of Agriculture of Pennsylvania, 1890: 



"In my examinations of 57 of these hawks fred-shouldcred I which have been captured in Pennsylvania, 45 had 

 been eating field-mice, some few other small quadrupeds, grasshoppers and insects, mostly beetles; nine revealed 

 frogs and insects; two, small birds, remains of small mammals and a few beetles; two, snakes and portions of frogs. 

 The gizzard of one bird contained a few hairs of a field-mouse and some long black hair which appeared very much 

 like that of a skunk. The bird on dissection gave a very decided odor of skunk. In two of these hawks, shot in 

 Florida, I found in one, portions of a small catfish, and in the other, remains of a small mammal and some few coleop- 

 terous insects (beetles)." 



In 1893 the United States Department of Agriculture presented the following results 

 of stomach examinations: 



The stomachs of 220 Red-shouldered Hawks were examined, of which only 3 

 contained poultry; this is only about i '4 per cent of the total number examined, 

 showing how very little harm this species of Hawk does to the farmers' chickens; 12. 



