610 
FOREST AND STREAM 
can see them. Most people, of course, never 
experience this, because with them it is chase and 
kill at first sight. 
A skunk is really a most interesting animal in 
wild places where he is not terrorized. I know 
of no animal that strolls along with such dignity 
of bearing and serene pleasure in his enjoyment 
of life and nature. He is apt to come out for these 
dignified strolls about 4 or 5 o’clock in the after¬ 
noon, and it is a great pleasure to waFch him. 
He is much more serene than a coon, which is 
rather a nervous animal. I wonder If that 
serenity does not come from his consciousness of 
having a most terrible weapon of defense. Since 
writing that sentence I find that the famous 
naturalist Wallace takes that view, and he adds 
that the conspicuous black and white coloring is 
protection, because it is an instant and easily dis¬ 
tinguished warning to other animals to stand 
aside. And yet, like some well-armed fellows, 
he is most moderate and forbearing if you too 
observe the code of the woods, and do not threat¬ 
en destruction. I can always study him with 
perfect safety from a distance of ten or fifteen 
yards. Saxon too, after several unpleasant en¬ 
counters, is content to stand more or less quietly 
at my side, at that distance. But he growls a 
little over the remembrances of the past. It is 
not altogether a natural history study with him 
in this case. 
But I am supposed to be writing about birds. 
The wickedest thing our people and legislatures 
ever did was to mark for extermination the owls 
and put a bounty on their heads as has been done 
in so many states. They did no more harm than 
anything else. They all kill and we all kill. Here 
again we have Audubon’s fascinating description 
of the great numbers of owls and their interest¬ 
ing varieties in his time; their frequent appear¬ 
ance, even in daytime, their soft noiseless flight as 
they started at dusk through the forests on their 
mysterious nightly prowl for sport and food. 
They feed largely on mice, insects and other crea¬ 
tures; and, as our National Department of Ag¬ 
riculture reports, are more beneficial than inju¬ 
rious to crops and country life. Like other bene¬ 
ficial birds, and like man himself, one or two 
species of them are hunters, particularly the 
Barred Owl and the Great Horned Owl. They 
kill birds for sport and food at times, and they 
like a treat of tender chicken just as we do. Even 
the two hunter species live largely on mice and 
insects; and the others are beautiful, interesting 
and beneficial. They help to make country life 
a pleasure, a varied and healthy recreation; and 
without such things it becomes mere stupidity 
and barrenness. 
Maybe we shall come to our senses in time to 
save the last of them; remove the bounty laws 
and create a different sentiment. Maybe we 
shall be too late. They are now nearly exter¬ 
minated except in wild places, where alone I can 
not have the pleasure of watching them. Many 
of them are magnificent birds to see. Read about 
them in Audubon’s first volume of his work on 
birds where they are treated together with the 
hawks, illustrated by that great master’s inimit¬ 
able artist hand, and described with the natural 
literary skill of passionate enthusiasm. He saw 
and studied them nearly a hundred years ago 
when they were numerous everywhere and fitted 
in with the rest of the numerous wild life of the 
continent. 
Their habits, development and capacities are 
part of the marvels of creation, and when they 
are all swept from the country and we have to 
go to Europe to see them, where a more enlight¬ 
ened sentiment protects them, we shall all regret 
their loss when it is too late. A superb one of 
them in full plumage one day in Florida, sat on a 
palmetto tree blinking at me in full midday sun, 
while I sat watching him under another tree. It 
is the rule to kill them when they are thus almost 
helpless, in the full glare of the day. But I would 
not have destroyed him for any consideration. 
The sheen and perfection of his plumage were 
wonderful. They bring you closer to nature and 
nothing makes me feel so much at home and 
sure that I am in the wilderness, as their solemn 
hooting in the Florida tropical forests. 
Bounties for the destruction of the hawks, 
owls, and various small animals, merely encour¬ 
age our people in the habit of exterminating. It 
gives them the idea that certain parts of nature 
are to be exterminated and soon they are exter¬ 
minating it all. 
We should teach them just the opposite; teach 
them to admire, love and preserve all nature; 
teach them the pleasure of studying and under¬ 
standing nature. There is nothing more civiliz¬ 
ing. 
In the last year the bounty system in Penn¬ 
sylvania has been found to have resulted in 
wholesale frauds on the state. It is essentially 
in its best form, more graft and fraud than any¬ 
thing else. Its motive with politicians is, usually, 
a mere bid for votes by offering the money of 
the state to certain people for destroying the 
natural beauty and property of the state; and en¬ 
couraging them to trespass on other people’s 
land to do it. While they go hammering away 
with this sort of extermination in the hope of 
increasing the game, the real causes of the de¬ 
crease of game, the destruction of cover and 
food, and the depredations of mankind, are 
neglected. 
“One of the counties of Pennsylvannia paid out 
in one year over $5,000 for scalps of birds of prey. 
In the light of the foregoing fact it will readily 
be understood how long a time it will take to 
replace these birds whose destruction cost the 
state of Pennsylvania so much money, in case 
their services are wanted. There is no doubt 
that this state and others which have passed 
similar laws have made a serious mistake; for it 
is indisputable that the opinion about hawks and 
owls, so widespread and popular, is riot well 
founded.” (U. S. Dept, of Agriculture Division 
of Ornithology Bulletin No. 3, p. 10.) 
That bounty system with its accompanying 
frauds has been carried on in Pennsylvania for 
many years; and yet the game and song birds 
instead of being helped by it have decreased. 
That is the great fact the whole country over 
that the extermination of hawks and other so- 
called predacious birds and animals, does not in¬ 
crease the game of the song birds. I am familiar 
with many places where that experiment has been 
tried and failed. Anyone can see that in general 
it has failed, because the game and song birds 
which were overwhelmingly abundant forty or 
fifty years ago, when the vermin so-called, were 
also abundant, have not increased, but have di¬ 
minished since the extermination of the vermin 
was undertaken. 
In the times following the Civil War, I was 
just old enough to go with my father to the 
eastern shore of Maryland. Hawks, crows, 
owls, eagles, foxes, minks, squirrels, snakes, 
every form of wild life was swarming. Game of 
all sorts were also swarming, especially quail 
and woodcock. The wild ducks, geese and swan 
covered all the rivers. But I need not dwell on 
them because 1 am discussing more particularly 
the land birds.' Song birds and all the interesting 
birds, not game, were innumerable. The wood¬ 
peckers, I remember, bored holes under the 
eaves of the house, and would wake you up with 
their hammerings at daylight; and if you escaped 
that, the chorus of song birds would soon put 
sleep to flight. The swallows built nests in the 
chimneys in summer time, and every ten or 
fifteen minutes through the day you could hear 
the twittering of the young as the parents 
brought them food. It was a paradise for a boy 
and I acquired tastes that never left me. 
I still go there and to the same farm. The 
hawks, eagles, and predacious creatures are 
largely exterminated. I have not seen an eagle's 
nest for many years; and instead of continually 
seeing hawks about you everywhere, they are a 
rarity. The same thing is true of the other 
species of vermin; they are either gone entirely 
or reduced to next to nothing. There should, 
therefore, according to the bounty theory, be a 
great increase of game. But there is not; it too 
is largely gone. Game laws have been passed 
and enforced to help it but even with their as¬ 
sistance there is less of it than when the vermin 
flourished. Instead of the great abundance of it 
that formerly lived side by side with the preda¬ 
cious creatures, and had lived side by side with 
them for thousands of years before white men 
discovered America, there is now so little of it 
that it is hardly worth hunting for. 
In the counties around Philadelphia fifty years 
ago there were many hawks and birds of prey, 
as I well remember, and an infinite number of 
song birds, far more than now; and twenty miles 
from the city there were a good many quail and 
woodcock. The woodcock were often found ten 
miles from the city. All this game has disap¬ 
peared. Only a few pair of quail nest in those 
counties in summer and migrate in the autumn. 
The war waged on the hawks and vermin did not 
save the game or restore it. Species of birds were 
then very numerous, of which now in those lo¬ 
calities you seldom see a single one. For ex¬ 
ample, one we called the yellow bird, which was 
prodigiously numerous, was trapped in great num¬ 
bers by people who came out from the city for the 
purpose, usually on Saturdays and Sundays, and 
sold as an imitation canary bird. It was the Amer¬ 
ican Goldfinch, as I learned in later years; and 
now whole summers pass in which I see none of 
them, or only a pair or two. They were destroy¬ 
ed by man. They had flourished with the hawks 
and vermin for centuries, but man, the trapper 
and arch destroyer cut them down so close that 
as often happens with a species, they cannot get 
going again and build themselves up. They may 
disappear entirely. 
The Labrador duck disappeared in that way. 
It was supposed that there was still a number of 
them about, until rather suddenly it was found 
that there was none; and none have been seen 
alive for many years. So also the passenger pigeon, 
which in the old days often swept across the 
whole country in vast flocks all day long so that 
even the naturalists had hardly patience to count 
the flocks. After merciless slaughter by car¬ 
loads on its roosting grounds, it still existed in 
