356 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



to learn a season or two later that the hawks had 

 been instrumental in making his work a success by 

 keeping his flocks healthful through preying upon 

 and carrying away all the weaklings that were not 

 sufficiently active to escape. After the elimination 

 of the hawks, the weaklings interbred and mingled 

 with the flock, starting disease which killed hun- 

 dreds. Acting on this same theory, a certain 

 chicken grower I know makes daily abrupt dashes 

 among his flock and kills every chicken he can 

 catch by hand, on the principle that if those taken 

 were as healtliful as they should be, they could 

 escape him. It is his belief that hawks should be 

 left alone. Either in summer or winter, a familiar 

 figure on the telegraph wires is the little dusky 

 falcon, commonly called the sparrow hawk, al- 

 though it is my fervent belief, judging from the 

 manner in which my song sparrows escape him, 

 that his diet is almost altogether confined to mice, 

 grasshoppers, and English sparrows. 



During the night, my woods are full of owls, 

 from tiny screechers as big as my doubled fist to 

 the great horned marauders, which prey upon gen- 

 uine pests, from mice, rats, water rats, and other 

 small animals to alas! my neighbours' hens. I am 

 sure that our hawks and owls really prefer to hunt 

 and feed in the wild, for in five years of life where 

 big hawks are preying on the red-wings across the 

 lake and dipping low over our orchard and horse 

 pasture, they never once have entered a large 



