4 
USEFUL BIRDS 
As a matter of fact, most of our hawks and owls are decidedly 
useful, preying- upon rabbits, squirrels, gophers, field mice, etc. ; 
crows frequently pick up Avbite grubs turned up by the plow, and 
the writer has seen in Alinnesota both blackbirds and crows in 
the stubble eating large numbers of grasshoppers, in a bad grass- 
hopper year. Of course both of these can be and are at times 
injurious in corn fields and in grain. And the poultry raiser, par- 
ticularly if living near timber, will occasionally lose poultry on 
account of the presence of hawks, but practically never on account 
of the tAvo or three birds of prey whose heads are shown in the ac- 
companying plates. There are one or two notoriously bad hawks, 
Init the little sparrow hawk. Fig 13, is a great eater of grasshoppers, 
and the marsh hawk, Fig. 11, so plentiful about meadows and on the 
prairie, is a constant hunter of field mice and other animals ; Avhile 
the screech oavI, Fig. 4, is a useful resident upon any farm as a 
mouse killer. (See also pages 7 and 8.) 
Teachers in our public and district schools have an excellent 
opportunity to inculcate in the minds of their boys a desire to 
study the haliits of birds and to discourage the maiming and killing 
of song birds or the destruction of their nests and eggs. Usually 
the small boy Avho Avould ‘hnake a collection” of birds’ eggs Avislies 
to do so because they attract him partly by their color, partly per- 
haps by the difficulties involved in securing them, and no doubt 
also influenced by a desire “to collect” which sometimes makes 
imperative demands upon both young and old. The loss to agri- 
culture by such collections is decidedly great, a loss which is aA^oid- 
able if the boy’s ambitions can be turned into other channels. Acts 
of this kind, egg-collecting without a license, and the killing of 
song birds are, for the most part, punishable by laAV, but if the 
child can be led into observance of these laAvs through an intel- 
ligent interest in the birds themselves, the result is better than 
if fear is the instigating cause. Enough has been said perhaps 
to emphazie the need upon the part of both adults and young of 
a careful and discriminating judgment of birds based upon their food 
habits before condemning them, and the need of encouraging in 
every Avay possible their continued presence on farm, in garden, 
and in orchards by boxes for Avrens, bluebirds, and martins, and 
by exposing material used in nest building ; by Avinter feeding and 
by fostering generally a wise and humane policy tOAvards our 
feathered associates. The recent enactment of laAvs by Congress pro- 
tecting birds during their migration is one of the best eAudences of 
