18 BIRDS 



Saints and Sinners 



Hawks and owls may be so labeled, yet it would be diflB- 

 cult, if not impossible, to conviace some people that there 

 is a saint in the group. There is an instinctive popular 

 hatred of every bird of prey — a hatred so unreasoning and 

 unrelenting that it is well-nigh impossible to secure legisla- 

 tion to protect some of the farmers' most beneficial 

 friends. After condemning the duck hawk for its villain^ 

 ies upon our wild water-fowl, and that powerful brigand, 

 the goshawk, for audaciously carrying off full-grown 

 poultry, ruffed grouse and rabbits, and Cooper's hawk, 

 a deep-dyed chicken stealer, whose aggregate misdeeds 

 are greater than any others (simply because ,his species is 

 the most numerous), and his smaller prototype, the sharp- 

 shinned hawk for destroying little chickens and song- 

 birds. Doctor Fisher, who made an exhaustive study of 

 hawks and owls for the Government, recommends clem- 

 ency toward all the others. He investigated forty birds 

 of prey found within our borders. 



"It would be just as rational to take the standard for 

 the human race from highwaymen and pirates as to judge 

 all hawks by the deeds of a few," he says. "Even when 

 the industrious hawks are observed beating tirelessly 

 back and forth over the harvest fields and meadows, or 

 the owls are seen at dark flying silently about the nm-series 

 and orchards, busily engaged in hunting the voracious 

 rodents which destroy alike the grain, produce, yoimg 

 trees, and eggs of birds, the curses of the majority of farm- 

 ers and sportsmen go with them, and their total extinction 

 would be welcomed. How often are the services to man 

 misimderstood through ignorance! The birds of prey. 



