464 



RECREATION. 



comes when a zoologist is required to 

 write a scientific as well as popular label 

 and use the latest and the absolutely satis- 

 factory-to-all scientific name. 



It looks as if the worship of the Priority 

 fetish has gone far enough. The situation 

 is becoming ridiculous. There are about 

 20 good men in the mammalogy line who 

 should stop resurrecting fossil names, get 

 together on a common sense, practical 

 basis, cremate Priority in a fiery furnace, 

 and give us for our most important animals 

 some names that will go thundering down 

 the ages. 



AGAIN THE HAWK QUESTION. 

 In spite of the costly experience of the 

 State of Pennsylvania, the elaborate inves- 

 tigations and publications of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, and the 

 repeated summarizing of the facts in Re- 

 creation, the ghost of the all-destroying 

 hawk still stalks abroad. In witness where- 

 of I submit the following letters : 



I notice an article in June Recreation 

 by'tt. V. Shelley, who claims the crow, 

 hawk and owl are good friends of the 

 farmer and wants to have them protected 

 by law. Evidently this man has never 

 seen a farm. If he had he would have seen 

 scarecrows in the fields, put there to keep 

 the rascal crows from pulling up all the 

 corn. Hawks are even more destructive. 

 When they pick up a chicken or young 

 turkey and fly away with it, the farmer 

 does not appreciate their friendship. 



Geo. J. Lee, Hoosick Falls, N. Y. 



The readers of Recreation who live in 

 Western Minnesota should show that its 

 teaching is not in vain by declaring: war 

 on the numerous hawks that infest our 

 prairies. If we all did our duty, we could 

 materially reduce the number of these 

 enemies of our game birds. 



I killed 6 chicken hawks here in one 

 day. Two I caught in the act of raiding: 

 covies of chickens. 



O. S. Lowell, Glenwood, Minn. 



Once more I refer all readers of Recre- 

 ation to Bulletin No. 3, Division of Or- 

 nithology and Mammalogy, of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, published by the Uov- 

 ernment in 1893, and entitled "The Hawks 

 and Owls of the United States in Their Re- 

 lation to Agriculture," by Dr. A. K. Fisher. 

 This valuable volume sets forth the long 

 series of investigations of the food habits 

 of the hawks and owls of the United States, 

 with full details. Thousands of stomachs 

 of our hawks and owls, in some cases sev- 

 eral hundred specimens of a single species, 

 were examined most carefully, and their 

 contents inventoried. Of the red tailed 

 hawk, 562 stomachs were examined, and 

 the results are published in full. There is 



no question about eitner the thoroughness 

 of the investigations, or the accuracy oi 

 the result. 



They establish the fact that of all the 

 hawks and owls in North America, only 2 

 species do sufficient damage, beyond the 

 good they accomplish, to justify their de- 

 struction. These are the sharp-shinned 

 hawk and Cooper's hawk, and wherever 

 they are found, it is right to kill them. The 

 other hawks and owls feed chiefly on wild 

 mice and rats, grasshoppers, beetles and 

 shrews, and the actual service which they 

 render the farmer far more than compen- 

 sates him for the occasional domestic fowls 

 which they destroy. 



For the third time, I refer to the experi- 

 ence of the State of Pennsylvania, which, 

 in the belief that all hawks and owls were 

 injurious to the interests of farmers, pro- 

 vided for the payment of bounties for tneir 

 destruction. An immense number of hawks 

 and owls were kiLed, and immmediately 

 the farms were overrun by a horde of de- 

 structive rats, mice and insects, which in- 

 creased with astonishing rapidity, because 

 the birds which had he!d them in check had 

 been destroyed. After an immense amount 

 of damage had been inflicted to the agricul- 

 tural interests of the State, what is known 

 as the "Fool Hawk Law"/ was hurriedly 

 repealed, and now the Pennsylvania farm- 

 ers know their feathered friends when they 

 see them. 



The trouble with Mr. Lee is that he is 

 not taking pains to inform himself regard- 

 ing the food habits of the hawks which he 

 would destroy. He does not give them 

 credit for the thousands of destructive mice 

 and rats that they kill on his farm each 

 year. Thanks to the investigations that 

 have been so ably conducted by the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, there is no room 

 for argument on the hawk question. Ex- 

 cepting the 2 species named above, the 

 hawks and owls are among the farmers' 

 best friends, and should be carefully pro- 

 tected. W. T. Hornaday. 



CAN CROWS SMELL GUNPOWDER? 



The old time notion that crows smell 

 powder is erroneous. I have made war on 

 crows for nearly 30 years, and have shot as 

 many as 300 in a single winter. The way I get 

 them is by building a blind, and hanging 

 near it one or 2 dead crows on a pole that 

 will reach above the surrounding brush. 

 In 2^ hours I have shot 36 crows from 

 one blind. Surely some of them had a 

 chance to smell powder, as I fired 48 times 

 to kill the 36. I have known them to 

 alight within 10 feet of where I was 

 hidden. 



They are always on the alert, and it is 

 the acuteness of their sight and hearing 

 that makes it so difficult to approach them. 



