Forest and Stream 
TtTm!, ^uZ^$^l &C ° py ‘\ NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1909. 
VOL. LXXIII— No. 17. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
ECONOMIC USE OF SOME WILD 
CREATURES.—II. 
Hawks and owls are extremely unpopular 
among farmers and ranchmen. One of them 
seen casually flying near the house causes great 
excitement, which is usually followed by a rush 
for the gun. Yet it is the fact that most birds 
of prey are continually performing services for 
the agriculturist and deserve protection. Only 
a few are actually injurious. 
_ The only harmful owl is the great horned owl 
I—the largest one which occurs in the United 
.States in any numbers. It unquestionably 
destroys many game birds and considerable 
poultry, and occasionally carries off a skunk or 
a wandering house cat—for which last offense 
it may well be forgiven. 
| The goshawk and duck hawk are of very 
infrequent occurrence, though within the last 
year or two there seems to have been an un¬ 
usual fall and winter migration of goshawks in 
tertain sections of the eastern country. 
Cooper’s hawk and the sharp-shinned hawk feed 
ilmost entirely on wild birds and on poultry. 
They are unquestionably harmful. Most of the 
Dther large hawks feed chiefly on mice, while 
he red-shouldered hawk appears to make more 
ir less a specialty of frogs and snakes. Never- 
:heless, it must not be forgotten that under 
:emptation even these useful birds may become 
aarmful, though this is unusual. 
It is perhaps not commonly known that some 
of the larger herons feed to a considerable ex- 
ent on pocket gophers, ground squirrels and 
ield mice, and cases are cited where the re¬ 
mains of three pocket gophers were found in 
i single pellet disgorged by a heron, while 
other specimens are known to have contained 
rom one to several of these injurious rodents. 
Pet most of us think of the herons only as 
'-sh eaters, interfering with our .sport and our 
efforts to increase the fish supply. 
Gulls and terns feed very largely on insects, 
tnd in California we have seen them in con- 
iderable flocks following the plow and feeding 
>n the grubs which it turned up. On the oc- 
:asion of the Nevada mouse plague a few years 
‘go, they collected in large numbers to feed on 
he mice which were devastating the farmers’ 
ilfalfa fields. 
All these wild things have their definite place 
in the economy of nature—a place which man 
must recognize or pay the penalty for his fail¬ 
ure to do so. Like the small birds now so gen¬ 
erally acknowledged as aids to agriculture and 
so to civilization, all of them, with the few ex¬ 
ceptions noted, are unpaid servants, working 
day and night to keep down those enemies 
which destroy the farmers’ crops, and make the 
world poorer by what they devour. The total 
money value of their destruction mounts up an¬ 
nually into the hundreds of millions of dollars. 
FOREST AND STREAM PRIZE STORIES. 
The prize story competition announced in 
Forest and Stream last month is exciting even 
more interest than that of a year ago. This is 
natural enough, since the prizes for 1909 are 
more numerous and greater in value than those 
of the year before. 
The stories for which prizes were awarded 
last winter, most of which have been published 
during the year, were noteworthy for their ex¬ 
cellence, both from their inherent interest and 
from the wide range of subjects covered, and 
it is believed that at the close of the competition 
of 1909 a still greater amount of valuable ma¬ 
terial will have been brought together. 
The most interesting thing about these stories 
is that they are true; the actual experiences of out¬ 
door people whose wanderings cover the whole 
surface of the globe, though the chief center of 
their adventures of course lies in the United 
States. It is a condition of the competition that 
the stories shall deal with fact, not with fiction. 
Whatever is printed in Forest and Stream must 
ring true, and it is the business of the judges to 
sift the true from the imaginative. 
Besides the stories to which prizes were 
awarded the competition brought out many other 
narratives which, for one reason or another, did 
not gain prizes, yet contained much matter of 
interest and value. A number of these have 
been printed, and some of them were of a high 
degree of merit. Others, while containing much 
valuable material, were somewhat diffuse and 
spread over so much ground that their authors 
were asked to rewrite them. It was character¬ 
istic of most of the stories that they possessed 
a genuine feeling for the wild—that love of 
nature which leads men far from the haunts of 
their kind to secure results whose worth can¬ 
not be comprehended by the man whose senses 
are not alert to the beauties and mysteries of 
the outdoor world. This is one absolutely essen¬ 
tial quality for a good story of outdoor life. 
We are looking forward with great interest 
to the closing of the present competition, and 
are sure that our readers share this interest and 
anticipation. Already we know of a number of 
manuscripts in preparation by writers who are 
well known to the Forest and Stream constitu¬ 
ency, and we believe that among the manuscripts 
submitted will be not a few from pens that have 
not before written for Forest and Stream. This 
competition is an opportunity not more for the 
practiced writer than for that outdoor man who 
feels a wholesome love for the things of nature, 
and who is willing to express this feeling. It 
is often the fact that the manuscript of the man 
who has never set pen to paper for the printer 
possesses a freshness and an interest that the 
practiced writer has largely lost. 
Forest and Stream is in receipt of a large 
number of photographs which are marked in 
no way to indicate their ownership. Such of 
these as are available for publication cannot 
with good grace be used, since proper credit 
cannot be given. Manuscripts are also sent by 
friends who neglect to attach their names and 
addresses, or who sign nom de plumes only. 
The receipt of packages of this nature cannot 
be acknowledged, nor can they be returned. If 
friends who have waited in vain for word con¬ 
cerning manuscripts or pictures sent by them 
will, on reading this explanation, advise us, 
proper acknowledgment will be made. It is al¬ 
ways best to write one’s name and address on 
each manuscript and photograph, and to inclose 
sufficient postage for its return, if this be de¬ 
sired by the sender. 
Harry Whitney, who passed two years hunting 
in the arctic regions, and who was with both the 
Peary and the Cook parties at different times 
and has therefore been drawn into the unfortu¬ 
nate controversy, will tell his experiences in a 
book that will appear shortly. Mr. Whitney’s 
collection of photographs is said to be one of 
the best ever brought from the far North, while 
his collection of trophies is also a valuable one. 
at 
Frequently game wardens have been fired on 
by poachers in this country, but organized par¬ 
ties of lawbreakers are almost unheard of here. 
On the opening day of the grouse season in 
County Kerry, Ireland, six men dressed in 
women’s clothing shot all day on land leased 
by a Mr. Ogilvy. Finally two gamekeepers at¬ 
tempted to eject them, whereupon the poachers 
fired a volley of small shot at the officers. 
at 
In Madison, Wis., there is anxiety regarding 
the whereabouts of Prof. C. K. Leith, of the 
Department of Geology and Mines of the Uni¬ 
versity of Wisconsin. With a party the pro¬ 
fessor went on an exploring expedition to the 
Hudson Bay region last June, and has not since 
been heard from. 
at 
During the last fiscal year of the Bureau of 
Fisheries at Washington, 11,000 applications for 
fish for restocking streams and ponds were re¬ 
ceived and a majority of the applications granted. 
Ten years ago 4,000 applications were received 
in a corresponding length of time. 
