“NOXIOUS” OR “BENEFICIAL”? FALSE PREM- 
ISES IN ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY. 
SAMUEL N. RHOADS. 
So many thousands of American dollars have been spent in 
the last ten years upon the investigations of the United States 
Department of Agriculture into the economic relations of 
plants and animals to man, and so much of inestimable value 
has been accomplished in this direction, that any criticism of 
the work turned out may seem captious, so greatly does the 
good outweigh the bad in the gross account. Nevertheless, 
there is always a disaffected portion of the agricultural classes 
who sneer at the study of “ bugs and bird stomachs ” as a most 
unhappy and worthless waste of taxes. It is too true that the 
horse sense and field experience of some of these country folk 
often has a deeper and more practical wisdom in it than the 
professional zodlogist or botanist can gain in his laboratory 
work. Even the specialist in some of these studies would fain 
join in with the cry of the farmer that all our efforts to regu- 
late the ravages of noxious animals and plants are as likely to 
increase or transform the evil as to correct it. Under former 
conditions of ignorance there was abundant cause to advocate 
such a happy-go-lucky theory, but now, thanks be to the perse- 
vering efforts of true science and wise legislation, we must all 
agree that it is our duty to spend and be spent in these 
researches. 
It has been the writer’s privilege to belong to both classes 
in this friendly controversy, and, with a fellow-feeling and sin- 
cere respect for each of these, he believes that the following 
remarks will be taken as evidence of his desire to reconcile and 
not antagonize the truth-seeking patrons and disciples of hus- 
bandry, whether in the field or the laboratory. 
It will best subserve the object of this essay to use Bulletin 
No. 3 of the United States Department of Agriculture on the 
“Hawks and Owls of the United States in their Relation to 
