MAGPIES, JAYS, CROWS: WHITE-NECKED RAVEN 493 
4 conchuela’ ( Chlorochroa ligata), an insect of the stink-bug family. 
Mr. 4 Doe’ stated that every Raven was worth at least a dollar to him, 
and it was thoroughly understood by his hands that anybody found 
shooting one was fired then and there.” In another place the Ravens 
were reported as saving the hay crop by feeding on the alfalfa cater¬ 
pillar. They also serve as 4 4 scavengers in cleaning up dead jack rabbits.” 
But in the Pecos Valley across the river from 44 John Doe,” a man 
Mr. McAtee calls 44 Richard Roe,” complained that 44 during the melon 
season the Ravens caused him twenty-five dollars damage a day by 
destroying cantaloupes and truck crops where not driven off, and he 
seemed to be just as eager to destroy the Ravens as Mr. 4 Doe’ was to 
protect them.” As Mr. McAtee comments, . . . “Each man’s view 
seems to be confined by a horizon of his own interests, which prevents 
his seeing those of even his neighbor’s. Thus Richard Roe wants to 
exterminate the Ravens because they destroy his melons; he does not 
think of what would happen to his neighbor’s alfalfa if he were success¬ 
ful in destroying the birds. Kill the melon depredators and we kill 
also the conchuela—and caterpillar-destroyers ... a coordinating 
agency [such as the Biological Survey] is needed to balance the views of 
the Roes and Does, and weigh them in the light of other informaion 
available, in other words, reduce them to the average. Very few of 
our birds are either wholly bad or wholly good. . . Birds must 
be judged on their general behavior and on average food habits.” 
The relation of a bird to particular interests 44 is but one phase of many- 
sided activities of a creature which ranges the continent, and concern¬ 
ing which the public interest is certainly paramount to that of any 
and all private interests. A bird’s general status as a wholly protected, 
a partially protected, or an unprotected species should depend on its 
general record at all seasons and in all localities. . . In case of 
loss due to birds, measures, not involving the death of the birds, that 
will minimize or prevent the damage, should first be sought. If 
satisfactory means of this sort cannot be found, strictly local control 
may be authorized, but it should have none of the aspects of, and 
should not be allowed to grow into, a general campaign for extermina¬ 
tion. . . The proper remedy for local and sporadic depredations 
by birds is local and temporary control. . . The degree of protection 
a bird should receive must be decided by competent and lawfully 
authorized bodies, and decisions should be based on the fullest possible 
information, permitting a just estimate or average of the bird’s tenden¬ 
cies for good or bad at all seasons and over its whole range” (1927b, 
pp. 97-99). 
In Carlsbad, where we found the Ravens in September, they had 
apparently come in from the surrounding desert and were common 
about the farms, where they were doubtless useful scavengers. Num- 
