57 



other species. Anything that at a distance looks like a sparrow would be 

 killed; and probably in most cases the bounty would be paid, unless a 

 competent naturalist could be appointed in each town or county seat to 

 pass on the heads. 



If we offer a bounty on the crow, most of the native crows which do 

 the mischief probably will escape, and the bounty will be paid mainly on 

 birds that come from the north in winter. The difficulty of killing crows 

 in the summer prevents many being taken at that time. In the winter 

 most of the crows that summer here probably go farther south, their 

 places being taken by crows from farther north. It is at this time that 

 crows are most readily killed, either by baiting or at their roosts; and 

 therefore most of the crows offered for bounty would be those which never 

 do any injury here, while the guilty ones would escape. 



A bounty on hawks or owls would work injury to the agricultural 

 interests. Hawks, with a few exceptions, are useful birds. Owls, most 

 of which are among the most useful of all birds, should be protected by 

 law, rather than proscribed. When in 1886 the people of Pennsylvania 

 became aware of the injurious effects of the "scalp act," Dr. C. Hart 

 Merriam, then ornithologist and mammalogist of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, his assistant, Dr. A. K. Fisher, and Dr. B. H. 

 Warren, examined over three hundred and fifty stomachs of the hawks 

 and owls killed under the act. Ninety-five per cent of the food materials 

 of these birds was found to consist, not of poultry and game, but of 

 "mice and other destructive mammals, grasshoppers and many injurious 

 beetles." Dr. Merriam says, in his report for 1886: "By virtue of 

 this act about $90,000 has been paid in bounties during the year and a 

 half that has elapsed since the law went into effect. This represents the 

 destruction of at least 128,571 of the above-mentioned animals, most of 

 which were hawks and owls. Granting that five thousand chickens are 

 killed annually in Pennsylvania by hawks and owls, and that they are 

 worth 25 cents each (a liberal estimate, in view of the fact that a large 

 proportion of them are killed when very young), the total loss would be 

 $1,250, and the poultry killed in a year and a half would be worth $1,875. 

 Hence it appears that in the past eighteen months the State of Pennsyl- 

 vania has expended $90,000 to save its farmers a loss of $1,875. But this 

 estimate by no means represents the actual loss to the farmer and the 

 taxpayer of the State." Dr. Merriam then goes on to show the vast loss 

 that must result to the people of Pennsylvania, who, by killing these 

 hawks and owls, have saved the field mice and other harmful creatures 

 on which the birds otherwise would have preyed. The Legislature of 

 Pennsylvania appointed a State ornithologist, and repealed the scalp act. 

 We do not need a "scalp act" in Massachusetts. 



The following from Dr. Palmer's summary shows tersely the 

 principal objections to any system of premiums for the de- 

 struction of animals: — 



