272 POULTRY AND WILD BIRDS 
daily food is fully equal to his own weight, so that our hoppers 
would eat 150,000 times 15.4 grains, which equals 2,310,000 
grains or 330 pounds. As some of them are not destroyed 
till late toward autumn, let us assume that on the average 
their foraging season is shortened by only 60 days. Then, 
during that time they would have eaten 60 times 330 pounds, 
or 9.9 tons. But that is not all. If these insects were not 
destroyed, they would multiply and soon reach such numbers 
that they might devour all vegetation, as in former years they 
have repeatedly done over large areas. 
Our Hawks and Owls. — Let us now consider our birds of 
prey. The prejudice against them is general, and is shared 
by those who should appreciate them best. This is of course 
due to lack of discrimination. It is true here that “a little 
learning ’’ — on the part of the man with a gun — “is a dan- 
gerous thing ’’ — to the bird. Simply because a few kinds 
of hawks like a chicken dinner, many people call half our 
species ‘‘ hen hawks ” and the rest of them “ chicken hawks.” 
Now, there are 18 species of the Hawk family and 11 of the 
Owls recorded for North Dakota, and only three of these 
feed to such a great extent upon birds that they do more harm 
than good. They are the Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper’s 
Hawk, and the Goshawk. These are all inhabitants of wooded 
sections, and the last one is rare even there. So they are not 
of much interest in our prairie states. 
As far as Hen Hawks or Chicken Hawks are concerned, these 
names belong to the Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks, 
and are not deserved by these birds. About go per cent of 
their food consists of injurious mammals and insects, and only 
about 13 per cent of game birds and poultry. Besides, these 
hawks belong to the woods and not to great open fields. They 
are therefore not seen in our prairie sections. The case then 
