THE OOLOGIST 



145 



By R. W. SHUPELDT. 



There are forty-four different kinds 

 of owls in the United States. Some 

 are very small, as the pygmy owls of 

 the southwest; while others, the great 

 gray owl and the various horned owls, 

 are as big as the largest hawks and 

 falcons. 



These birds are, as a rule, largely 

 nocturnal in habit, and this fact has 

 doubtless had much to do with pre- 

 serving their kind from utter exter- 

 mination at the hands of man. Boys 

 are encouraged to shoot them, because 

 they are alleged to prey upon young 

 chickens and other poultry of the 

 farmyard. 



Where farms are much isolated, and 

 in parts of the country where the bird 

 is found, it is very likely that the 

 great horned owl will prey upon do- 

 mestic fowls; but he will also destroy 

 his share of such vermin as rats, 

 weasles, mink, and so on. The pygmy 

 owls, on account of their habitats and 

 diminutive size, need not be taken 

 into consideration here. Disregarding 

 these species, then, it may be said 

 with the greatest certainty that there 

 are few birds of greater use, and prac- 

 tically none that perform more incal- 

 culable services to the agriculturist in 

 all parts of the country, than owls. 



Many hundreds of common barn 

 owls are destroyed every year. When 

 the farmer kills them on the plea that 

 they steal his young chickens he is 

 paying for slight losses by murdering 

 some of his best friends. 



The late Charles Bendire, in his 

 work on American birds, says of this 

 owl that it is "one of the most useful 

 and harmless bird of prey, subsisting 

 almost entirely on noxious vermin, 

 such as ground squirrels, rats, pocket 

 gophers, mice and on shrews, bats, 

 frogs, small reptiles, grasshoppers and 

 beetles. Very rarely small birds are 

 caught by them and occasionally a 

 young rabbit varies the usual bill of 

 fare. Looked at from an economic 

 standpoint it would be difficult to point 

 out a more useful bird than this owl, 

 and it deserves the fullest protection; 

 but, as is too often the case, man, who 

 should be its best friend, is generally 

 the worst enemy it has to contend 

 with, and is ruthlessly destroying 

 him." 



Further on he says: "The number 

 of rats, mice and other noxious ver- 



min required by a pair of these owls 

 to feed their family, usually consisting 

 of from five to seven young, is almost 

 incredible, and I am certain exceeds 

 the captures of a dozen cats for the 

 same period. The young owlets are 

 always lumgry and will eat their own 

 weight in food daily, and even more 

 if they can get it," 



WOULD PAY TO IMPORT OWLS 



In support of this last statement an- 

 other witness at hand has published 

 the fact that when "one of these birds 

 has young it will bring a mouse to 

 its nest about every twelve or fifteen 

 nrnutes. But in order to have a prop- 

 er idea of the enormous quantity of 

 mice that it destroys, we must exam- 

 ine the pellets that it ejects from its 

 stomach in the pace of its retreat. 

 Every pellet contains from four to 

 seven skeletons of mice. In sixteen 

 months from the time when the apart- 

 ment of the owl in the old gateway 

 was cleaned out there had been a de- 

 posit of more than a bushel of pel- 

 lets." 



Here doubtless 7,000 or 8,000 mice 

 were destroyed by only one pair of 

 barn owls in less than a year and a 

 half. Any farmer may entertain a 

 fairly correct notion as to how much 

 grain 7,500 mice will consume in the 

 course of a year. 



In rural districts where the barn owl 

 is either very scarce or is not found at 

 all it would p-'ove a distinct benefit to 

 import a few pairs and protect them 

 by efficient legislation. They would 

 be a terror to all rats, field mice and 

 pocket gophers of the country all 

 round, and they would keep the latter 

 down to a minimum at all times of the 

 year. Every time we slay a barn owl 

 we give a lease of life to vermin to 

 spread disease and to eat up the pro- 

 du-^ts of the farm. 



Edward Howe Forbush, in a bulletin 

 entitled Rats and Rat Riddance, pul)- 

 lirhed by the State Board of Agricul- 

 ture of Massachusetts says: "Rats arc 

 the most expensive animal that man 

 maintains — forerunners of famine, dis- 

 ease and pestilence, disseminators ol 

 the dreaded trichina and the terribl? 

 bubonic plague, or black death, which 

 has slain its miserable horror-stricken 

 millions since the dawn of history, 

 and now has spread to the United 

 States," 

 In America we not only have no reg- 



