105 
A bounty on hawks or owls would work injury to the 
agricultural interests. Hawks, with a few exceptions, are 
useful birds. Owls, being probably among the most useful 
of all birds, should be protected by law, rather than pro- 
scribed. When in 1886 the people of Pennsylvania became 
aware of the injurious effects of the scalp act, Dr. C. Hart 
Merriam, then ornithologist and mammalogist of the United 
States Department of Agriculture, his assistant, Dr. A. K. 
Fisher, and Dr. B. H. Warren, examined over three hundred 
and fifty stomachs of the hawks and owls killed under the 
act. iNinety-five per cent of the food materials of these 
birds was found to consist, not of poultry and game, but of 
“ mice and other destructive mammals, grasshoppers and 
many injurious beetles.” Dr. Merriam says, in his report 
for 1886: “ By virtue of this act, about ninety thousand 
dollars has been paid in bounties during the year and a half 
that has elapsed since the law went into effect. This rep- 
resents the destruction of at least 128, 571 of the above- 
mentioned animals, most of which were hawks and owls. 
Granting that 5,000 chickens were killed annually in Penn- 
sylvania by hawks and owls, and that they are worth 25 cents 
each (a liberal estimate, in view of the fact that a large pro- 
portion of them are killed when very young), the total loss 
would be $1,250, and the poultry killed in a year and a half 
would be worth $1,875. Hence it appears that in the past 
eighteen months the State of Pennsylvania has expended 
$90,000 to save its farmers a loss of $1,875. But this 
estimate by no means represents the actual loss to the farmer 
and the taxpayer of the State.” Dr. Merriam then goes on 
to show the vast loss that must result to the people of Penn- 
sylvania, who, by killing these hawks and owls, have saved 
the field-mice and other harmful creatures on which the 
birds otherwise would have preyed. The Legislature of 
Pennsylvania established the position of State ornithologist, 
and repealed the scalp act. We do not need a “ scalp act ” 
in Massachusetts. 
Dukes County and the town of Lakeville now pay boun- 
ties on hawks. This unwise policy should be discontinued. 
There are many sections in eastern Massachusetts where 
hawks and owls are becoming rare. During the winter of 
