FOREST AND STREAM 
611 
By Whom Has All This Destruction Been Wrought? By Man! 
some numbers down almost to the year 1890, and 
no one was thinking of extermination until sud¬ 
denly it was seen no more, and not a specimen of 
it has since been found. 
Naturalists report that the wild dove may be 
going the same way easily slaughtered in the 
southern states by baiting it to certain fields, the 
flocks of it I used to see as a boy as far north as 
Maryland, can be found no more even in remote 
districts of the south. Scattering birds or a few 
pairs are all you find. The band tailed pigeon of 
the southwest is also, I understand, meeting the 
same fate. 
By whom has all this destruction been 
wrought? By man. Nothing else. And to show 
how men differ in different countries, we must 
remember that though we quickly exterminate 
our pigeons, the wood pigeon in England is still 
preserved, is still so numerous there and in other 
parts of Europe, as to afford abundant sport and 
food supply. 
The reed bird (bobolink of summer time), 
which came to the Delaware river marshes in 
September by hundreds of millions, is now cut 
down to a miserable, insignificant remnant. I 
learn from the naturalists that it has totally dis¬ 
appeared or is extremely rare in northern New 
Jersey and about New York City, where thirty 
years ago it was abundant. A law to stop shoot¬ 
ing them for a few years and allow them to in¬ 
crease was so unpopular that it was repealed on 
petition of a large number of gunners who pre¬ 
ferred to go on exterminating the remnant along 
the Delaware, rather than practice the thrift of 
preservation and increase for the future. 
Perhaps a word more should be said of it. It is 
valuable for food in September when it is called 
the Reed bird, and is then not particularly pretty 
in its sober brownish suit. But in spring and 
summer in its gorgeous plumage and filling the 
air with its rich notes as it lives scattered through 
our meadows and fields, raising its brood, it has 
long been the joy and delight of millions of 
people ever since the colonists came from old Eng¬ 
land. At that season it is called the Bobolink. 
Now that our people are learning more about 
birds, they find that the Bobolink spends the 
winter in South America below the Amazon in 
the prairies of Brazil, and the marshes of La 
Plata, and is a wonderful traveler and migrator, 
and that though nearly exterminated in our east¬ 
ern states, he is making his way and finding a re¬ 
fuge westward, following the extension of grain 
fields and the irrigation enterprises all the way to 
the Rocky Mountains and has even crossed them 
to the Pacific Coast. This makes him more inter¬ 
esting than ever. It is almost a “Dollars-and- 
cents proposition,” to preserve him, for we are 
discovering that natural pleasures are money or 
more important still, life. They find too, that 
all summer long he is a fierce destroyer of grass 
hoppers, caterpillars, army worms, weevils, and 
all sorts of noxious insects. There, they say, 
see what a real “dollar-and-cent proposition” he 
is. 
But behold another side of him. In October 
in his brown Reed Bird form, he had for a hun¬ 
dred years been in the habit of visiting by millions 
the rice lands of the Carolinas and Georgia, and 
devouring the rice in its milky stage. Dollars 
[This is the First of a Series of Three Articles on the 
Subject of Game Preservation by an Authoritative 
Writer. The Next Article Will Be Published in the 
November Issue of Forest and Stream.—Ed.] 
and cents out of my pocket, cries the rice plant¬ 
er; and in the old days they kept slaves stand¬ 
ing on platforms in the rice fields all day long 
cracking whips and shooting guns, to drive 
Bobolink away. I venture to say that Bobby 
has destroyed more dollars and cents than all 
the hawks and vermin from the foundation of 
the world to the present day. It is a good il¬ 
lustration of the point I wish to bring out 
strongly in this article, that all are beneficial 
and all are destroyers, and in that respect re¬ 
semble man himself; and that to attempt to se¬ 
lect and preserve only the beneficial ones and 
exterminate all the rest is impossible, is a plan 
doomed to failure and has already failed. 
The U. S. Department of Agriculture after ex¬ 
haustive study reports in the Bulletin already 
quoted, that the hawks may be divided into three 
classes. First, those including about six species 
which are wholly beneficial to agriculture, be¬ 
cause they feed exclusively on insects, rats and 
mice; second, those including about a dozen 
species which are mainly beneficial because, 
though occasionally indulging in poultry, they, 
for the most part, keep in check injurious insects 
and rodents; third, those including only four 
or five species whose beneficial and harmful qual¬ 
ities about balance each other; fourth, those in¬ 
cluding only three or four species, the sharp 
skin, Cooper’s hawk, the Goshawk, and the Duck 
Hawk that feed more on birds than on insects. 
Taken altogether the large percentage of their 
lives is beneficial. Of the three or four that are 
marked as more injurious than beneficial, it is al¬ 
together too petty and sneakingly calculating to 
mark them for extermination. They are noble, 
beautiful birds, that take their prey by skill and 
power, that put most of our sporting methods to 
shame. Let them share the worlds with us and 
feed on some of the same things we feed on. 
One of the birds which the Agricultural De¬ 
partment has felt compelled to class in with 
hawks and put in the third class of balanced 
benefit and injury is the eagle, because, though 
in some localities it destroys rodents and small 
animals injurious to agriculture, it carries off 
lambs and kills wild ducks, especially wounded 
ones. It is our National bird, the emblem of our 
liberty and independence; and yet our people 
seem determined to exterminate it and are rapid¬ 
ly succeeding. There will soon not be one left. 
Of all the so-called rapacious birds the final 
conclusion of the National Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment is that “the greater number either pass 
their whole time in the constant performance of 
acts of direct benefit to man, or else more than 
make good the harm they do in the destruction 
of insectivorous birds and poultry by destroying 
a much greater number of animals well known 
to be hostile to the farmer.” (U. S. D. of A., 
Div. of Ornithology Bulletin No. 3, p. 17.) 
In our insane desire to protect game by bounty 
laws against hawks, owls and ocher creatures we 
forget the rats which those “predacious birds and 
vermin” destroyed in the days of abundant game. 
Of all the destructive agencies of ground nest¬ 
ing birds like quail and grouse, the rats, mice 
and other small rodents rank among the highest 
after man. Rodents are innumerable in the 
fields and woods, and increase from north to 
south. People are making a great fuss now 
about preventing dogs from wandering about in 
the nesting season, and they want to kill your 
fine dog at sight if they see him out on the road. 
Others have gone cracked about wandering cats. 
(Continued on page 632.] 
