THE EAGLE, KING OF BIRDS, AND HIS KIN 



57 



movements of men through the country 

 will bear scrutiny, as frequently men leave 

 behind them food in the form of animals 

 killed, or offal from large bodies that have 

 been butchered. 



To test this, it is necessary only to sit on 

 the open ground while skinning a rabbit or 

 some large bird, and if you are in a region 

 where turkey buzzards are common, it 

 will be only a few moments until one or 

 two are wheeling overhead. If there is 

 promise of food, they remain ; if not, they 

 continue their search elsewhere. 



In South America yellow-headed buz- 

 zards (Cathartcs urubitinga) have fol- 

 lowed me into woodland where I was 

 seated on the ground entirely concealed 

 and engaged in examining birds that I 

 had killed for specimens. The buzzards 

 alighted a few feet away to watch me 

 curiously. I have had buzzards come to 

 eat the flesh from carcasses of their own 

 kind which I had skinned where I had 

 shot the birds. Possibly this was unin- 

 tentional cannibalism, as there was nothing 

 about the bodies to distinguish them from 

 the skinned bodies of any other birds. 



There can be no doubt that the buzzard 

 has learned to watch the actions of dogs 

 whose activities may indicate the presence 

 of carrion concealed in caves or holes. 

 There is also the probability that the pres- 

 ence of buzzing flesh flies that breed in 

 carrion may be an indication to the buz- 

 zard of a concealed food supply. There- 

 fore, admitting that the turkey buzzard 

 has a well-developed olfactory nerve, and 

 thus might be expected to have some sense 

 of smell, to me present evidence indicates 

 that it finds its food mainly, if not en- 

 tirely, through its acute sense of sight. 



man's hand is against the hawk tribe 



The hand of civilized man has been 

 raised universally against the hawk tribe, 

 and birds of this group are shot or other- 

 wise destroyed at every opportunity. It 

 is rare, indeed, for hawks to come within 

 gun range of a hunter without receiving a 

 charge of shot, and they are killed in many 

 localities by setting steel traps on the tops 

 of posts or poles that the birds utilize as 

 perches. 



In England it is the duty of game- 

 keepers to kill air "vermin" that appear 

 on the property under their charge, hawks 

 being included in this category. On a 

 large estate near the Thames I once saw a 



"keeper's larder" where, near a frequented 

 path, the gamekeeper had hung up his kills 

 for display. These included the drying 

 skeletons of sparrow hawks (a species 

 related to the American sharp-shinned 

 hawk), kestrels (allied to the American 

 sparrow hawk), magpies, and jays, with 

 a few small predatory mammals. 



Belief in the destructiveness of hawks is 

 almost universal. In most minds there is 

 no distinction between hawks that habitu- 

 ally prey on birds and may destroy a cer- 

 tain amount of game, and the sluggish, 

 heavy-flying species that feed consistently 

 on wild mice and other destructive rodents, 

 and so are beneficial to man. 



The game commissions of many States 

 have offered bounties for the heads of 

 hawks and have expended hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars in the destruction 

 of untold thousands of them. The result 

 is that in the eastern half of the United 

 States these birds have decreased to less 

 than a tenth of their former abundance. 



Since the decrease has affected the bene- 

 ficial kinds even more heavily than those 

 that are classed as injurious, there has 

 been an increase in destructive rodents 

 formerly held in check by hawks, with the 

 result that these animals have done severe 

 damage to agricultural interests. 



The Cooper's hawk and the goshawk 

 are the principal species that are destruc- 

 tive to game, with the marsh hawk to be 

 added in certain localities where pheasants 

 and other game birds that range in the 

 open are concerned. It may be permis- 

 sible to keep these hawks in check, and to 

 include among those to be killed the occa- 

 sional individual of the red-tailed hawk 

 or other species that acquires the habit of 

 coming to the farmyard for chickens. 

 There is, however, no excuse whatever for 

 the widespread slaughter of all kinds of 

 hawks that has been the fate of these 

 birds for years. 



Sportsmen have justified the indiscrimi- 

 nate killing of hawks on the ground that 

 they were conserving game ; in other words, 

 with the excuse that they were providing 

 more game for men to kill. Nowadays, 

 with nature lovers, who do not hunt, equal- 

 ing sportsmen in numbers, some consider- 

 ation may be given to the rights of those 

 who enjoy seeing hawks alive and study- 

 ing their interesting ways, aside from the 

 value that most of these birds have from 

 their beneficial food habits. 



