NATURAL HISTORY. 



When a bird or a wild animal is killed, that is the end of it. If photographed, it may still live and its educational 



Ufic value is multiplier! indefinitely. 



KILL OFF THE EAGLES. 

 In the conduct of Ri eon, as far 



a . 1 have observed, consistency has been a 

 leading jewel, in your November i 



ver, a bad break is noticed. You 

 always ad d the protection of 



game by all. Yet in the number met - 

 tioned, because a man shot a chk 

 thief belonging to a great game destroying 

 Species, you say he es jo years im- 



prisonment. 1 hardly believe you meant 

 just that. Your better judgement would 

 dictate that a man who did not shoot 

 at a chicken thief of any sort, caught in 

 the act, de:. *ooi. You will find 



it hard to name a useful characteristic of 

 the bird you defend; he lacks a single 



;ming feature. He is a most cruel, 

 crafty and rapacious game exterminator. 

 Only sentimentalists of the most sense- 

 less sort can see any utility in the eagle. 

 I hope you will continue to work for game 

 protection and boom the L. A. S., but 

 don't try to ride .steeds going in opposite 

 directions. Eagles and game, from deer 

 down, are diametrically opposed to each 

 other. Payson, Manchester, X. H. 



I referred above letter to Mr. W. T. 



Hornaday, and Mr. A. K. Fisher, Assistant 



Biologist of the United States Biological 



Survey, with a request for an expression 



of their views on the quest'on(?) it raises. 



Here is Mr. Hornaday 's reply: 



i 



' ' Exterminate the American eagle as a 

 measure of sportsmen's economy ? Perish 

 the thought. Refuse legal protection to 

 him when his existence is threatened? 

 How can any full-blooded, right-minded 

 American citizen be so churlish? Surely 

 your correspondent has written hastily, 

 and without taking time for sober second 

 thought. 



The American eagle needs no defence 

 from me. Whenever the time comes that 

 he is really in need of legal protec- 

 tion, 5,000,000 able-bodied men, saying 

 nothing of the women and children, 

 will be ready to fight for him at the d 

 of a hat. Whenever he needs to call out 

 his reserves, he will be the best protected 

 bird on earth. Whether 



" He clasps the Tag with honked hands. 

 Close to the sun in lonely lands," 

 or roosts in the dead cypresses along 

 Indian river, or drags his finny prey from 

 the swirling waters of the Yukon, he is 

 enshrined in the hearts of 73.000,000 free 

 people, and not one out of every 1 00,000 

 of them grudges him his daily food. 



If his requisitions on the flocks of 



ati farmers ever become a mention - 

 able al burden, depend on it, met 



will be found to pa,y Old Baldy's boi 

 bill. As to there is not a bit of 



danger that any sp ver will be 



terminated, or even noticably thir 

 out by That charge may justly 



be dismissed on the ground of "no cause 

 for action." I venture to assert that there 

 is not in this Union a State or Territory 

 whose taxpayers would not rather 1 

 for the actual losses to stock and poultry 

 than to have the American Eagle 

 terminated within its border 



Foreigners often sneer at Americans 

 because of their worship of the mighty 

 dollar. If the white-headed eagle ever 

 should be exterminated, or driven out of 

 this country because he eats an occasional 

 chicken, lamb or rabbit, we will merit and 

 receive the scorn of the world. Even 

 the poverty-stricken ryots and bazaar 

 men of famine-racked India ungrudgingly 

 share their scanty stores of grain with the 

 monkeys, made sacred to them by tra- 

 dition. Shall we do less by our national 

 bird' Hardly, 



Of late years a few iconoclasts have 

 gone out of their way to write down and 

 villify the character of Haliaetus leuco- 

 cepkalus, and in that way, possibly, they 

 have earned from publishers various sums 

 of money amounting in the aggregate 

 to as much as S8. They have called him 

 a thief, a coward, a liar, and no gentle- 

 man; and more than one diatribe has 

 wound itself up with a blistering de- 

 nunciation of the use of such a bird as <* 

 national emblem. Some have ev°i set 

 up the wild turkey as a claimant for 

 the position of feathered color-bearer for 

 this nation! 



Now, all this would be saddening, but 

 for one thing; — it is amusing. Even if 

 there is here and there a citizen who does 

 not appreciate our national bird, the 

 position of that bird is as impregnable as 

 the Atlantic ocean. Even outside our 

 own country the whole world admires 

 him, or fears him, which amounts to the 

 same thing. 



Your correspondent says, "Only senti- 

 mentalists of the most senseless sort can 

 see any utility in the eagle." It is true 

 that Old Baldy can not hoe corn, nor drive 

 a team ; but he does not need to do any un- 

 skilled labor, for he has a better job.' He 

 has been officially appointed to perch 

 with outstretched wings over the doors 

 of all our ambassadors, foreign mini:~^~ 

 and consuls, bear on his breast the armorial 



30x 



