April 13, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
471 
The Hawk and Owl Problem. 
West Haven, Conn., April 6.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: In these days when so much at¬ 
tention is being given to game-bird propaga¬ 
tion and poultry farming, and just now when 
the nesting season of the hawks and owls is 
in progress, the subject of our attitude toward 
this class of birds is a timely one. In this 
matter we must meet extremes of opinion. On 
some game preserves they try to kill every 
raptorial bird. On the other side there are 
people opposed to game preserves because of 
this attitude toward an interesting class of 
birds. The only correct judgment is from the 
standpoint of knowledge and consequent dis¬ 
crimination. Most hawks and owls will at least 
occasionally destroy a fowl or chicken or a 
game or insectivorous bird. Some kinds do 
this habitually; others prefer a different diet 
and commit depredations more under force of 
circumstances. While it would not be desirable 
to have birds of prey really abundant, on the 
whole they have a useful function to perform, 
in the keeping down of noxious vermin, and it 
would be a calamity to have them entirely ex¬ 
terminated. 
Take, for instance, the great horned owl, 
classed as one of the most destructive species. 
It certainly kills game birds and poultry to 
some extent. But I have often examined their 
nests where they bring their prey. In the great 
majority of cases I have found there rabbits, 
skunks, woodchucks, squirrels, rats, snakes, but 
only occasionally birds. In short they feed 
mainly on vermin which would have destroyed 
much more game and poultry than the owls. 
But if there were too many owls there would 
not be vermin enough to go round, and of 
course they would invade the poultry yard; in 
fact, one pair of these owls in a large wooded 
tract is a pretty good thing to have. Of course, 
if they become troublesome, as individuals will 
sometimes do, they can be shot. Yet they are 
magnificent great creatures, and I love to hear 
them hooting in the twilight in the rugged hill 
country and the big timber. Much the same is 
true of the barrel owl, a slightly smaller species, 
without the ear-tufts. 
Omitting mention of a few rare hawks that 
do not figure much economically, we have only 
two kinds that are of serious menace. These 
are the Cooper’s and the sharp-shinned hawks, 
of medium and small size respectively, with 
short wings and long tail, which flap their 
wings rapidly. Their principal diet is of birds 
and poultry, and it is proper to shoot them at 
sight. There is no danger that they will be 
exterminated. 
The other hawks and owls, like most people, 
are neither notable saints nor very great sin¬ 
ners. Some of them, like the so-called hen- 
hawks—the red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks 
sometimes bother the farmer of the game 
birds, though usually confining their attention 
mostly to vermin and insects, being rather 
heavy, sluggish birds, taking what comes easy. 
When individuals learn the way to the poultry 
yard or game farm and become troublesome, 
they can be suppressed. 
Showing how individual “good” birds will 
fall from grace, last winter I knew of a screech 
owl killing a Hungarian partridge through the 
wire of a pen. I have even heard of one kill¬ 
ing a large hen. It was winter, and probably 
these were desperate from hunger. Ordinarily 
they are splendid mousers and ratters, better 
than most cats, and I should not dream of 
shooting them because of rare lapses from our 
human standards of virtue. The marsh hawk 
that quarters over the meadows, the retiring 
broad-winged hawk of forest tracts, the little 
sparrow hawk with reddish back that hovers 
over the field for mice and grasshoppers, are 
birds of this same category. Those who shoot 
them all indiscriminately only reveal their lack 
of observation. It would really require vigor¬ 
ous war on their part against the vermin to 
undo the damage they thus unwittingly do to 
the game birds in removing the natural check 
upon the vermin. In the western grain-raising 
country, the hawks and owls keep down the 
gophers, the worst pest of the farmer. In 
some localities where bounties have been offered 
for hawks and owls it is said that rodents have 
so increased as to girdle the fruit trees and 
seriously ravage the crops. Bounties are harm¬ 
ful in causing the-destruction of good with the 
bad. 
My plea, in short, is to discriminate. Keep 
down only the really injurious species. Kill 
individuals of other kinds that commit depre¬ 
dation. Consider that many of our raptorial 
birds lead quiet and mostly harmless lives, hold¬ 
ing down the flood of vermin that would over¬ 
whelm us. Indeed, it gives great pleasure and 
sense of real achievement to know the wild 
raptors of the forests. 
Herbert K. Job, 
State Ornithologist. 
Winter Migration of the Prairie Chicken. 
Charles City, Iowa, March 27. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: To one passing through portions 
of Iowa this past winter and the present month 
of March, he would be often led to believe that 
the old prairie chicken days were rapidly com¬ 
ing back. 
Only yesterday I observed in a small field of 
unhusked shocked corn a flock of perhaps fifty 
or more prairie chickens which had come here 
to feed. A short time before I had also ob-, 
served in a barren pasture in another place near 
the central part of the State a flock of chickens 
perhaps equally large. 
At another place in this same general section 
is a field of standing and shocked unhusked corn. 
Here can often be seen flocks of many hundreds 
of prairie chickens feeding. These statements 
are equally true regarding this winter bird, as 
it occurs in various other places in Iowa this 
winter and so far this spring. 
It does the heart of every old timer good to 
again see these birds in such numbers, as it so 
vividly recalls the past. 
Very many of these prairie chickens will soon 
leave this State for other regions, from which 
it is conceded they camei It is generally recog¬ 
nized, and has been for years, that many of the 
large numbers of chickens that winter in Iowa 
come in from Wisconsin, Minnesota and the 
Dakotas, as here the winters are often milder 
and there is generally a better feeding ground. 
Clement L. Webster. 
Starlings with Other Birds. 
Delanson, N. Y., March 27.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: I noted the letter of Ellis L. 
Dudley in a recent issue of Forest and Stream 
in regard to starlings feeding with crows.. I 
have not yef seen the starling, but this or a 
similar association seems to be an old habit of 
the bird. 
Perhaps the following quotation from White’s 
“Selborne,” Letter XL, to the Hon. Daines Bar¬ 
rington, may shed some further light on the 
subj ect: 
“If I admire when I see how much congener¬ 
ous birds love to congregate, I am the more 
struck when I see incongruous ones in such strict 
amity. If we do not much wonder to see a 
flock of rooks usually attended by a train of 
daws, yet it is strange that the former should 
so frequently have a flight of starlings for their 
satellites. Is it because rooks have a more dis^ 
cerning scent than their attendants, and can lead 
them to spots more productive of food? Anato¬ 
mists say that rooks, by reason of two large 
nerves which run down between the eyes into 
the upper mandible, have a more delicate feel¬ 
ing in their beaks than other round-billed birds, 
and can grope for their meat when out of sight. 
Perhaps then their associates attend them on the 
motive of interest, as greyhounds wait on the 
motions of their finders, and as lions are said 
to do on the yelping of jackals.” 
Will W. Christman. 
A Peevish Hummingbird. 
Walking in a lonely piece of woods I was some¬ 
what startled by a buzzing sound, says Cordelia 
J. Stanwood in the Maine Ornithological Journal. 
A hairy woodpecker immediately struck against 
one side of a tree, and the maker of the noise, 
a hummingbird, alighted on the other. There 
the big fellow crouched in abject terror, while 
the little fellow jabbed at him. first around one 
side of the tree, then around the other side of 
the tree. This one-sided battle continued for 
some time, when the hairy woodpecker sought 
another tree only to be closely pursued by his 
tormentor. 
Probably the woodpecker was goaded to his 
duty by necessity—a nest of young waiting for 
food but a few yards distant. At any rate, in 
spite of the jabs of his persecutor, he began to 
bore holes for insects. When he had drilled a 
hole, the hummingbird descended upon him and 
drove him away. I did not see that the humming¬ 
bird reaped any material benefit from this rough 
warfare. After a time he left the woodpecker 
to his work, but still lingered in the neighbor¬ 
hood. 
Not long since I saw a hummingbird pester¬ 
ing two black-throated green warblers who were 
feeding young in the trees. 
