33 



bushes and low trees, and that they have been caught often 

 in the act of devouring eggs and young birds. 1 Dr. Merriam 

 says that he has found their nests in holes in trees more than 

 seventy feet from the ground. 2 Many nesting boxes put up 

 for birds in or near the woods are occupied by these mice. It 

 is fortunate that owls keep them in check. I have no informa- 

 tion regarding the destruction of birds by pine mice, jumping 

 mice or any other species, but it is probable that any of them 

 might destroy birds should their numbers increase unduly, as all 

 small rodents are likely to become more or less carnivorous 

 under such circumstances. 



Deer (Odocoileus virginianus virginianus and Odocoileus vir- 

 ginianus borealis). 

 Dr. George W. Field assures me that deer eat the eggs of 

 ground birds. It seems probable that if this is the case they 

 may devour young birds also. Mr. F. C. Walcott quotes Mr. 

 C. C. Worthington's statement that thirty-four deer on his 

 preserve were killed by eating poisoned sparrows. The birds 

 were found in the stomachs of the dead deer. 3 



Birds. 



Shrikes (Lanius borealis and Lanius ludovicianus migrans). 

 Shrikes or butcher birds are believed to be beneficial. Dr. 

 Judd of the Biological Survey reports on stomach examinations 

 of shrikes as follows: — 



The food of the butcher bird and loggerhead, as shown by one hundred 

 and fifty-five stomachs collected during every month in the year, and in 

 an area extending from California to the Atlantic coast, and from Sas- 

 katchewan to Florida, consists of invertebrates (mainly grasshoppers), 

 birds and mice. During the colder half of the year the butcher bird eats 

 birds and mice to the extent of 60 per cent, and ekes out the rest of its 

 food with insects. In the loggerhead's food birds and mice amount to 

 only 24 per cent. The loggerhead's beneficial qualities outweigh 4 to 1 

 its injurious ones. Instead of being persecuted it should receive pro- 

 tection. 4 



1 Stone, Witmer, and Cram, W. E. : American Animals, 1902, p. 132. 



2 Merriam, Clinton Hart: The Mammals of the Adirondack Region, 1884, p. 263. 

 ' Job, Herbert K.: The Propagation of Wild Birds, 1915, p. 71. 



4 Judd, Sylvester D.: Bull. No. 9,U. S. Dept. of Agr., Div. of Biol. Surv., Cuckoos and Shrikes, 

 1898, p. 24. 



