4 
Staffordshire and Derbyshire, and analysed by Mr. Adams, yielded 
the following results :— 
"No. of 
Pellets. 
Bat. 
Rats. 
Mice. 
Voles. 
Shrews. 
Sparrows. 
Other 
Birds. 
Frogs. 
Beetles, &c. 
240 
1 
18 
174 
402 
575 
7 
18 
3 
' 
(Remains in 
8 pellets) 
It will be noticed that in no single case have the remains of any 
game bird, chicken or duckling occurred among these pellets ; while 
the value of the work done by keeping in check the destructive 
hordes of Voles and Field Mice can only be appreciated by those 
who have studied the records of the great Vole plagues which have 
occurred from time to.time not only on the Continent* * * § but also in 
our own country.f 
This kind of investigation, although it can only be applied to 
one or two families, has the enormous advantage over the system 
of stomach examinations, that it can be carried on by anyone 
acquainted with the habits and haunts of the birds without any 
destruction of life. Where, however, it cannot be applied (as for 
example in the case of the Woodpecker), perhaps the most 
satisfactory plan is that adopted by German naturalists in special 
cases,]; and reduced to a regular system by the staff of naturalists 
working under the United States Department of Agriculture. 
When it is desired to ascertain the economic value of any 
species, a number of birds are shot at different places, 
distributed over as wide an area as possible. Exact data of 
each case are kept and examples are obtained at every season 
of the year. Meantime, each bird’s stomach has been taken out 
and submitted for examination to experts in botany and 
entomology. When a sufficient amount of material has accumu¬ 
lated, the results are carefully tabulated, and in many cases 
illustrated by means of diagrams, so that the proportion of harm 
or good done by each bird can be estimated at a glance. One of 
the first memoirs published by the department on this system was 
Dr. A. K. Fisher’s report on “ The Hawks and Owls of the U. S. 
in their relation to Agriculture ” (1893).§ Owing to scarcity of 
* See “ Zool.,” 1893, p. 139, 187. 
f See “ Report of the Departmental Committee ’appointed by the Board of 
Agriculture to enquire into a plague of Field Voles in Scotland,” 1893. 
X eg., the Crows (Rorig), the Woodpeckers (Altum, v. Homeyer, etc.), 
Kingfisher, Cuckoo, etc. (Eckstein, etc.). 
§ The gist of this work is contained in a pamphlet entitled “ Hawks and 
Owls from the standpoint of the Farmer ” (1895). 
