COMMON BIRDS OF SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES. 
39 
It is true that buzzards may carry the germs of anthrax or other stock diseases on 
their plumage, feet, or bills, and thus distribute them; but all the other animals just 
mentioned may similarly carry disease germs on the surfaces .of their bodies, as may 
also flies, domestic pigeons and other poultry, horses, mules, and cattle, not to mention 
members of the human family. In fact at the same time that steps are being taken 
greatly to reduce or exterminate a wild bird—the buzzard—which may possibly play 
a minor part in the transmission of anthrax, farmers are harboring several domestic 
animals that have far greater possibilities as spreaders of the disease. The fact that 
anthrax may be carried by flies is more than sufficient to explain the most severe 
epidemics. 
Obviously, it is unfair to attempt to place the blame for general dissemination of 
stock diseases on the buzzard. Considering the multitude of ways in which these 
diseases may be spread, it can not be doubted that stock diseases would be as widely 
distributed as now if turkey buzzards were eliminated, as'lias been proposed. What 
amounts to proof of this is the fact that hog cholera at times is virulent and seriously 
destructive in regions where there are few or no turkey buzzards, as in certain Northern 
States and Canadian Provinces. 
Attacks in the South by buzzards upon living farm animals indicate that, there are 
to many buzzards there for the best economic interests. In the North, where buzzards 
are fewer, such attacks are believed never to occur. Reduction in the number of 
buzzards may be desirable, especially if accompanied by or resulting from a proper 
system of carrion disposal, but there is a wide gulf both in meaning and desirability 
between reduction in numbers and extermination. 
Practically the only way to carry on a destructive campaign against the buzzard 
would be by shooting. Inevitably the guns would largely be in the hands of the less 
responsible classes of the population, and many birds other than buzzards would 
undoubtedly be shot. This is a powerful argument against undertaking extermination 
of buzzards unless it shall be definitely proved to be necessary.—w. L. m, 
