16 
BY THE WAYSIDE. 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
Published on the fifteenth of each month. 
The official organ of the Wisconsin and Illinois Audu¬ 
bon Societies. 
Twenty=five cents per year. Single copies, three cents 
All communications should be sent to Mrs. G. W. 
Pkckham, 646 Marshall St., Milwaukee, Wis. 
The Wisconsin Audubon Society extends a 
warm welcome to 81 new school branches with 
2,511 members. 24,001 teachers and children 
have now joined the ranks of bird protectors 
in this state. 
Apropos of the crow and hawk bounty bill, 
recently vetoed by Governor La Toilette, Mrs. 
GafTron has some very sensible remarks in the 
Plymouth Review. She says: Many people 
have the idea that but one species of hawk in¬ 
habits Wisconsin, when in fact ten kinds of 
hawks may be found during some season of the 
year within the state lines and several others 
may occasionally stray within its borders. 
Other people believe that all hawks deserve 
the appellation of hen-hawks and that all 
should be killed. It is this belief that has 
cost some of the Western states dearly. After 
paying hundreds of dollars to rid themselves 
of hawks, crows and owls, they found that 
it cost them millions of dollars to feed the 
grasshoppers and mice which should have been 
food for the slain birds. Most of the hawks 
do some harm, a few do more harm than good, 
while others are almost entirely beneficial. The 
harmful ones are the sharp-shinned hawk, 
Cooper’s hawk and American goshawk. Chap¬ 
man says of them: ‘“The generally misapplied 
names ‘hen hawk’ and ‘chicken hawk’ should 
be restricted to birds of this genus, for they 
deserve the reputation commonly attributed to 
the large hawks of the genus Bueto” 
We quote also from Prof. Weed: 
“Among people in general there is perhaps a 
greater need of education concerning hawks and 
owls than concerning any other group of in¬ 
jurious birds, or even all of them put together. 
We have only one owl and three or four hawks 
that are not more beneficial than otherwise. 
This being the case, we see the folly of setting 
a bounty on the heads of the whole family, 
as has been done at various times in several 
States. Such a bounty takes money from both 
pockets and throws it to the winds.” 
We are inclined to believe that if farmers 
uealt with crows as intelligently as crows deal 
with farmers there would be vastly less heard 
about the injury they do. The boy who put 
his linger to the dim edge of a humming buzz- 
saw, with the remark, “It looks as if it were 
there,” was accustomed thereafter to rely more 
on vision. The man who expects wind-mills, 
scarecrows, old newspapers, bottles, and sheet 
tin to protect his field, when he has seen them 
fail year after year, needs some such lesson as 
the hoy had to make him more acute. “Br’er 
Rabbit” is scarcely more at home “in a briar- 
patch ' than crows among these harmless ob¬ 
jects, with which they have been acquainted 
from youth up, and which were never known to 
harm anything-. 
They soon learn what is dangerous and what 
is not. If one is shot or poisoned or caught, 
his comrades remember his misfortune and 
thereafter avoid the place of its occurrence. 
They are so apprehensive of danger that they 
seldom alight near one that is dead, though 
it may never have been a companion. 
Crows are accustomed to do most of their 
foraging very early in the morning and on 
rainy days. The farmer who neglects to tra¬ 
verse his corn-land at these times is sure to 
rue it. They will take advantage of a dense 
fog, and attack fields they would hardly dare 
fly over in good weather. 
Ordinarily, a field covered with a network 
of twine strung on poles will not be molested. 
The twine is usually strung along a few feet 
from the ground, at intervals of two or three 
rods. A dead crow thrown down upon the 
ground or suspended in the air is also almost 
certain to deter them from venturing near. 
Poultry placed in boxes heavily slatted, so that 
the presence of something alive will be mani¬ 
fested without exposing the real nature of the 
contents, make very good scarecrows. Two or 
three boxes to the- acre, one fowl in each, are 
sufficient. 
Xot a few farmers are accustomed to scat¬ 
ter small quantities of grain—not poisoned— 
in their fields two or three times a week dur¬ 
ing the period when crows are troublesome. 
They say the crows thus obtain all the grain 
they want without pulling up any. They also 
claim that the crows pay well for the grain by 
destroying cutworms and other injurious larvae 
that infest the ground. 
