800 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Hawks and owls hold the same relation to rabbits and mice that the 
smaller birds hold to the insect enemies of the orchard. For years 
they have been looked upon as harmful, but investigation has dissipated 
_much of this error. While, as is the case with most birds, nearly all 
of them do some harm, the great majority are preeminently useful. 
Mice, rabbits, and other rodents are a constant menace to the interests 
of the fruit grower, and sometimes when through some combination of 
circumstances their numbers become superabundant, as has frequently 
happened in the case of field mice in Europe, their ravages are enor- 
mous. Indiscriminate slaughter of hawks and owls has often been 
followed hy great ravages by voles and other mice. This should be 
sufficient to demonstrate the great utility of these birds as a check upon 
the undue increase of such pests. 
GREAT HORNED OWL.—The great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), a 
bird well known in most parts of the country—though not often seen, 
owing to its retiring habits—is probably one of the most potent factors 
in holding in check that troublesome pest of the orchard and nursery, 
the common cottontail rabbit. Several years ago in a locality in 
eastern Massachusetts, through some unknown cause, rabbits became 
wonderfully abundant, and the following winter woodchoppers and 
others who visited the woods were surprised to see many great horned 
owls where in former years not more than two or three were annually 
observed. The presence of these birds so soon after the increase of 
the rabbits shows how quickly they avail themselves of an unusual sup- 
ply of food, and thus restore the disturbed equilibrium. Unfortunately, 
it happened that at this time stuffed owls were fashionable as parlor 
ornaments, and taxidermists were therefore willing to pay a good 
price for them; so when it became known that the woods were full of 
owls, the natives did their best to reduce the number, and so perpetu- 
ated the rabbit scourge. 
In a number of the Eastern States the rabbit is protected by law, 
and can be killed only during a small part of the year; but the animal 
is us much of a nuisance as are the various species of field mice, and 
the accident of its larger size only renders it capable of more mischief. 
To offer bounties for the destruction of hawks and owls and simulta- 
neously protect rabbits is an anomaly of legislation which will probably 
puzzle and amuse future and wiser generations. The food value of the 
rabbit is insignificant compared with its capacity for mischief when it 
becomes overabundant. In the West the larger species, or jack rabbits, 
have many times become excessive in numbers, and “rabbit drives,” in 
which the animals are surrounded and driven into a small inclosure, 
where they are killed, have grown to be of frequent occurrence. In 
Australia the European rabbit some years ago became so abundant 
as to threaten the very existence of the sheep industry over a wide 
expinse of territory. The common cottontail rabbit is already much 
