Jan. 29, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
171 
rivers, and west of the Mississippi, his infer¬ 
ence is wide of the truth, since only from 15 
to 40 per cent, of the stomachs of the more 
important species examined came from the South 
and West. 
Under the great-horned owl, after quoting the 
bulletin to the effect that it feeds on all kinds 
of poultry, including half grown turkeys, grouse, 
quail, doves and wild ducks, Mr. Hardy states: 
“To plain farmers it would look as though a 
bird with such a record should be classed as 
‘bad,’ but no, it is placed in class C, those which 
do as much good as harm.” We acquit him. of 
intentionally garbling our words; nevertheless, 
to be perfectly fair, he should have quoted the 
statement further as follows: “In studying this 
owl in relation to its food habits it will be per¬ 
ceived at a glance that a bird so powerful and 
voracious may at times be a source of great 
benefit, while at other times it may be a cause 
of great damage. Now, the serious inroads it 
makes on the tenants of the poultry yard, as 
well as the destruction of many game and song 
birds, would seem to call for the total extermi¬ 
nation of the species. Again, when engaged 
chiefly in the capture of injurious rodents which 
threaten the very existence of the crops, it is 
the farmers’ most valuable ally, and conse¬ 
quently should be most carefully protected.” We 
may add to the above that over half of its range, 
an area fifty times larger than the State of 
Maine, the species is of enormous value in de¬ 
stroying jack rabbits, cottontails and other ro¬ 
dents which often make it almost impossible to 
start orchards or raise farm crops. In these 
regions the “plain farmers” are prone to class 
this owl as a good friend. 
Your correspondent complains further that 
owls, especially the great-horned and barred 
owls, destroy large numbers of the smaller fur¬ 
bearing animals. No doubt the muskrat is a 
valuable asset in Maine, but where there are 
dams and dikes this furbearer is looked upon 
with great disfavor and is uniformly destroyed. 
The muskrat, especially, on account of its bur¬ 
rowing habits, at times causes enormous loss of 
property. Last season one parish in Louisiana, 
in an effort to protect its levees and dikes by 
concerted action, killed nearly half a million 
muskrats. In this locality any natural enemy 
that would destroy the pests would be heartily 
welcomed. 
The muskrat is commonly eaten by the mink, 
w'hich ruthlessly destroys great numbers of them 
in their hiding places where they are safe from 
the attacks of birds of prey. From Mr. Hardy’s 
standpoint this habit of the mink is most objec¬ 
tionable. His observations on the capture of a 
mink by an owl are very interesting, but are ex¬ 
ceptional, and we know of only one other record 
of birds of prey seizing this formidable little 
animal. Mink are dreaded in poultry-raising 
districts and every effort is made to kill them. 
Their economic status then depends largely on 
the point of view. The fur dealer, having in 
mind the value of their fur, would conserve 
them. But the farmer, having an eye to the 
safety of his poultry, would condemn them. The 
destruction of mink by hawks and owls, how¬ 
ever, is so very exceptional that it has little 
bearing one way or the other on the mink prob¬ 
lem. 
Comparatively few people appreciate how 
much damage is done by certain of our small 
Gliding. 
SKIING ON THE CRUST. 
rodents. We have known w r here one, or possi¬ 
bly two, pocket gophers in a short time de¬ 
stroyed half a dozen seven-year-old apricot trees 
by girdling them under ground. These trees 
had borne a good crop of fruit and were worth 
at least $100. Field mice and rabbits have been 
known to damage an orchard in the West in 
one season to an amount estimated at $40,000. 
In some of the valleys in Nevada in 1908 the 
losses of alfalfa from depredations of field mice 
are estimated at $250,000. In this latter section, 
after the birds of prey taught the ranchmen 
their value by materially aiding to destroy the 
pests, the ranchmen gave them absolute protec¬ 
tion and now make no complaint when they take 
an occasional chicken. 
One of the most amazing statements made by 
Mr. Hardy is to the effect that in all the hawks 
and owls examined by him he has never found 
a trace of either mice, moles or rats. It is un¬ 
fortunate that this astonishing assertion is not 
accompanied by a specific list of what he found. 
As it stands, the natural inference is that his 
experience has been very limited. He mentions 
that he has examined twenty stomachs of snowy 
owls, but does not enlighten us as to the con¬ 
tents. We are inclined to believe that when 
Mrs. Celia Thaxter in her “Among the Isles of 
Shoals” speaks of the snowy owl “watching for 
rats” she knows what she was talking about. 
We regret we cannot as readily commend Mr. 
Hardy’s own method of reasoning. That he 
examined some twenty snowy owls and failed to 
find the remains of rats in their stomachs is 
small warrant for his statement that “though 
they may have watched for rats I am sure they 
never caught any.” It ought not to be neces¬ 
sary to inform Mr. Hardy that a single meal 
can hardly be accepted as an accurate index of 
the bill of fare for a bird’s whole life. Those 
particular owls of his may have eaten rats only 
the day before they were killed, and who shall 
say what they might have eaten had they been 
spared another day to hunt in a more favorable 
rat locality than the bleak New England sea 
coast. In our examination of more than double 
that number, 14 per cent, contained house rats 
and 65 per cent, other rodents. One stomach 
contained no fewer than seventeen mice. Of 163 
marsh hawks examined by us, remains of mice 
were found in 106, or 65 per cent. One con¬ 
tained eight individuals. 
We hold no brief for the “Hawks and Owls 
of the United States.” In the work above men¬ 
tioned, which unfortunately has failed to win 
the approval of your correspondent, were 
brought together vastly more data than had been 
accessible to students of the subject up to that 
time. 
Since the “Hawks and Owls of the United 
States” was issued in 1893, a large amount of 
additional material has been examined and many 
valuable observations recorded. This does not 
to any extent alter our previous deductions, but 
in the main emphasizes the value of birds of 
prey in destroying noxious animals and main¬ 
taining the proper balance of nature. Speaking 
in general terms, the normal food of the birds 
of prey, with the exception of the goshawk, 
Cooper hawk, sharp-shinned hawk and duck 
hawk, consists of injurious rodents and insects, 
largely grasshoppers, and when these are ob¬ 
tainable they rarely if ever touch other food. It 
is well known that in some localities, especially 
