THE MISSION OF THE BIRDS 
2 I 
most familiar examples, serve a very useful purpose in keeping in 
check the mice and rats which otherwise would prove very trouble- 
some. In some regions where the hawks and owls have been ruth- 
lessly destroyed the damage from field mice has been very great. 
The indiscriminate destruction of all sorts of hawks and owls 
simply because some hawks and owls catch poultry is a foolish and 
wasteful practice. As a matter of fact the smaller owls and the 
most common hawks feed upon mice and insects and seldom or 
never take poultry. For example, the little screech owl is perhaps 
our most common owl. Most people think it a privilege to shoot 
it on sight. But its food, as determined bv those who have studied 
it long and careful- 
ly, consists chiefly 
of mice and insects. 
“At nightfall,” 
writes Dr. A. K. 
Fisher, ; *these birds 
begin their rounds, 
inspecting the vicin- 
ity" of farmhouses, 
barns, and corn- 
cribs, making trips 
t h r o u g h the or- 
chards and nurser- 
Head of Hawk 
ies, gliding silently 7 
across the meadows or encircling the stacks of grain in search of 
mice and insects. Thousands upon thousands of mice of different 
kinds thus fall victims to their industry. Their economic relations 
are therefore of the greatest importance, particularly on account 
of the abundance of the species in many farming districts, and who- 
ever destroys them through ignorance or prejudice should be severe- 
ly 7 condemned.” 
Those who have rambled much in the country in the clear 
winter mornings must have noticed the tracks of mice which often 
form networks in the snow, crossing and recrossing, passing in and 
out of walls and stacks, or converging toward some choice bit of 
f OCK ] — a ll tending to show how 7 active these little rodents are during 
the night, a period when most of the world sleeps. Occasionally 7 
a track stops abruptly, and while the observer is trying to read 
