50 SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY OF SAN ANTONIO 



realize that all life is interdependent, or understand anything 

 about the relations of mankind with other forms of life ? 



The valuable bulletins issued by the U. S. Biological Survey, 

 have been the means of removing and correcting many wrong 

 impressions and false ideas in regard to the habits of some of the 

 most despised creatures. In one of the bulletins issued, on the 

 Economic Value of the North American Skunks, it is stated that : 



"Skunks are among the most useful of the native animals, and are 

 one of the most efficient helps to the farmer and orchadist in their war- 

 fare against insect and rodent pests." 



Other important bulletins giving the results of investigations 

 by competent naturalists, furnish reliable evidence regarding the 

 habits of toads, bats, moles, eagles, hawks, owls and numerous 

 other common wild birds and animals, which prove most con- 

 clusively that some species which have hitherto been considered 

 enemies, are really friends of the farmer and fruit grower, and 

 that the good they do far exceeds the harm. Out of fifty species 

 of hawks in the United States, only four or five of them may be 

 considered injurious. 



Recent investigations show that the buzzard, a much perse- 

 cuted bird, accused of spreading anthrax among cattle, and 

 doomed to extermination on account of this prejudice, is probably 

 one of the least active of the agencies by which this disease is 

 disseminated. It is no doubt a fact that hogs, dogs, wolves, cats, 

 possums, etc., with flies and other insects are all greater dis- 

 tributers of the germs from decaying carcasses than the buzzards. 

 Why should the buzzard, a valuable scavenger bird, bear the 

 blame alone? Dr. A. K. Fisher, in charge of Economic Investi- 

 gations of the U. S. Biological Survey, while he does not deny 

 that buzzards may carry disease, stated that he would value 

 highly any data, which will positively prove that they transmit 

 disease either to human beings or livestock, and suggests that 

 legislatures devote their time to passing laws for the destruction 

 of all diseased carcasses, and not for the persecution of the 

 buzzard. 



The following paragraphs on this subject are from a bulletin 

 (No. 755) issued in October this year (1916) by the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, which should be read by every 

 farmer and stockman : 



"The nature of their food would indicate that buzzards have strong 

 digestive powers. The spores of anthrax or charbon, a virulent stock 

 disease, have been shown by two independent investigations to be de- 

 stroyed by passing through the alimentary canal of buzzards. Anthrax 



