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NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 



ONE of the good signs of the times is the inter- 

 est our young people are taking in the birds, 

 and the numerous clubs and societies that are be- 

 ing formed throughout the country for bird pro- 

 tection and bird study. In my youth but little was 

 heard about the birds. They were looked upon as 

 of small account. Many of them were treated as 

 the farmer's natural enemies. Crows and all kinds 

 of hawks and owls were destroyed whenever chance 

 offered. I knew a farmer who every summer caught 

 and killed all the red-tailed hawks he could. He 

 ^tood up poles in his meadows, upon the tops of 

 which he would set steel traps. The hawks, looking 

 for meadow-mice, would alight upon them and be 

 caught. The farmer was thus slaying some of his 

 best friends, as these large hawks live almost en- 

 tirely upon mice and other vermin. The redtail, or 

 hen-hawk, is very wary of a man with a gun, but 

 he has not yet learned of the danger that lurks in a 

 steel trap on the top of a pole. 

 If a strict account could be kept with our crows 

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