BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 63 



Hawks annually destroy is simply incredible, as any really observant 

 person will admit. 



" In my own opinion, the destruction of the Hawks and Owls within 

 the State of Pennsylvania will, ere many years, result in an incalcu- 

 lable injury to the farmer, who will be overrun with hordes of mice, 

 which he will be powerless to limit, as their reproductiveness, when 

 undisturbed, progresses with astonishing rapidity. 



"It would, in my opinion, be a wise measure to have the act relat- 

 ing to the alleged noxious birds totally repealed. 

 " Very truly yours, 



"LuciEN M. TURNER. 



"AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS UNION, 



"Committee on the Protection of North American Birds, 



" NEW YORK, March 12, 1886. 

 "DR. B. H. WARREN: 



" DEAR SIR : The A. O. U. Committee on the Protection of Birds, 

 recognizing the great importance ol the report of your Committee on 

 the Usefulness of Hawks and Owls to the Farmer, has instructed me 

 to purchase, if possible, one hundred copies of the paper containing 

 your report, and to ask if we may have the privilege of reprinting it, 

 either in whole or in part, in the interest of the cause, if at any time 

 we should find it convenient to do so. Your report is directly in the 

 line of our work and could not fail to be a telling influence for good 

 if well circulated. 



Very truly yours, 



EUGENE P. BICKNELL, 

 Secretary. 



"Dr. A. K. Fisher, Assistant Ornithologist U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, Washington, D. C., in a letter dated January 15, 1887, 

 addressed to Dr. B. H. Warren, says : c Wednesday I received eight 

 adult Red-tails and two Red-shouldered Hawks from a man in Mary- 

 land. * * * I find nothing but mice and shrews in their crops and 

 stomachs (from two to five in each). I found two specimens of Sorex 

 and the following specimens of mice : Mus musculus^ Hesperomys 

 leucopus, Arvicola riparius and Arvicola pinetorum. The Hawks had 

 been killed because they had " killed " chickens and u quails/' 



" The committee also made inquiries of the commissioners of the 

 different counties as to the numbers of birds and mammals that have 

 been killed and for which bounties had been paid, and received an- 

 swers up to July 1, 1886, from thirty-four counties. The number of 

 Hawks killed and reported up to that date was 9,237, at an expense 

 of $7,335.10, and of Owls 2,499, at an expense of $1.303.90. 



