 CHAPTER XXIII. THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS Today from Halifax to Los Angeles, and from Key West to Victoria, a deadly contest is being waged. The fruit growers, farmers, forest owners, and park people are engaged in a struggle with the insect hordes for the possession of the trees, shrubs, and crops. Go out into the open with your eyes open, and you will see it for yourself. Millions of dollars are being expended in it. Look at this exhibit of what is going on around me at this very moment, July 19, 1912. The bagged insects and thousands are devouring the leaves of locust and maple trees. The elm beetles are trying to devour the elms, and spraying is in progress. The hickory bark borers are slaughtering the hickories, and even some park people are neglecting to take the measures necessary to stop it. The tent caterpillars are being burned. The aphis, scale insects, are devouring the tops of the white potatoes in the New York University School Garden, just as the potato beetle does. The codling moth larvae are already at work on the apples. The leaves affected by the witch hazel gull fly are being cut off and burned. These are merely the most conspicuous of the insect pests that I now see daily. I am not counting those of second or third rate importance. Some of these hordes are being fought with poisonous sprays. Some are being killed by hand, and some are being ignored. In view of the known value of the remaining trees of our country, each woodpecker in the United States is worth twenty dollars in cash. Each nut-hatch, creeper, and chickadee is worth from five to ten dollars, according to local circumstances. You might just as well cut down four or twenty inch trees and let them lie and decay as to permit one woodpecker to be killed and eaten by an Italian in the north, or a Negro in the south. The Downey Woodpecker is the relentless enemy of the codling moth, an insect that annually inflicts upon our apple crop damages estimated by the experts of the U.S. Department of Agriculture at twelve million dollars. Now, is a federal strong-arm migratory bird-law needed for such birds or not? Let the owners of orchards and forests make answer. The Case of the Codling Moth and Cerculeo The codling moth and cerculeo are twin terrors to apple growers, partly because of their deadly destructiveness, and partly because man is so weak in resisting them. The annual cost of the fight made against them in sprays and labor and apparatus has been estimated at eight million two hundred fifty thousand dollars. And what do the birds do to the codling moth? When there are any birds left alive to operate? The testimony comes from all over the United States, and it is worthwhile to cite it briefly as a fair sample of the work of the birds upon this particularly deadly pest. These facts and quotations are from the yearbook of the Department of Agriculture for 1911. The Downey Woodpecker is the champion tree protector and also one of the greatest enemies of the codling moth. When man is quite unable to find the hidden larvae, Downey locates it every time and digs it out. It extracts worms from young apples so skillfully that often the fruit is not permanently injured. Mr. F. M. Webster reports that the labors of this bird afford actual and immediate relief to the infected fruit. Testimony in favor of the Downey Woodpecker has come in from New York, New Jersey, Texas, and California, and no fewer than twenty larvae have been taken from a single stomach. Take the red-shafted flicker versus the codling moth. Mr. A. P. Martin of Petaluma, California states that during the early spring months of 1890 they were seen by hundreds in his orchard, industriously examining the trunks and larger limbs of the fruit trees. And he also found great numbers of them around sheds where he stored his winter apples and pears. As the result of several hours' search Mr. Martin found only one worm, and this escaped only by accident, for several of the birds had been within a quarter of an inch of it. So eager are woodpeckers in search of codling moths that they have been known to riddle the shingled wraps and paper bands which are placed to attract the larvae about to spin cocoons. Behold the array of birds that devour the larvae of the codling moth to an important extent. Downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, Texan woodpecker, red-headed woodpecker, red-shafted flicker, piloted woodpecker, kingbird, western yellow-bellied flycatcher, blue jay, California jay, magpie, crow blackbird, brewer blackbird, bullock Oreo, English sparrow, chipping sparrow, California tohi, cardinal, black-headed cross-beak, lazuli bunting, barn swallow, western warbling virial, summer or yellow warbler, lutecine warbler, brown creeper, white-breasted nut-hatch, black-capped chickadee, plain titmose, Carolina chickadee, mountain chickadee, California bush-tit, ruby crowned kinglet, robin, bluebird. In all, says Mr. W. L. McAtee, thirty-six species of birds from thirteen families help man in his irrepressible conflict against his deadly enemy, the codling moth. In some places they destroy from sixty-six to eighty-five percent of the hibernating larvae. Now are the farmers of this country content to let the Italians of the North and the Negroes of the South shoot these birds for food and devour them? What is the great American farmer going to do about this matter? What he should do is write and urge his members of Congress to work for and vote for the Federal Migratory Bird Bill. The Cotton Bowl Weevil Let us take one other concrete case. The Cotton Bowl Weevil invaded the United States from Mexico in 1894. Ten years later it was costing the Cotton Planters an annual loss estimated at fifteen million dollars per year. Later on that loss was estimated at twenty million dollars. The Cotton Bowl Weevil strikes at the heart of the industry by destroying the bowl of the Cotton Plant. While the total loss never can be definitely ascertained we know that it has amounted to many millions of dollars. The figure given above has been widely quoted and so far as I am aware never disputed. Fortunately we have at hand a government publication on this subject which gives some pertinent facts regarding the bird enemies of the Cotton Bowl Weevil. It is circular number 57 of the Biological Survey Department of Agriculture. Anyone can obtain it by addressing that department. I quote the most important portions of this valuable document. Birds Useful in the War Against the Cotton Bowl Weevil by H. W. Henshaw, Chief of the Biological Survey The main purpose of this circular is to direct the attention of cotton growers and others in the cotton growing states to the importance of birds in the bowl weevil war. I emphasize the need of protection for them and to suggest means to increase the numbers and extend the range of certain of the more important kinds. Investigations by the Biological Survey show that 38 species of birds eat bowl weevils. Well some eat them only sparingly, others eat them freely, and no fewer than 47 adult weevils have been found in the stomach of a single cliff swallow. Of the birds known at the present time to feed on the weevil, among the most important are the Orioles, Night Hawks, and for most of all the Swallows, including the Purple Martin. Orioles. Six kinds of Orioles live in Texas, though but two inhabit the southern states generally. Orioles are among the few birds that evince a decided preference for weevils, and as they persistently hunt for the insects on the bowls, they fill a place occupied by no other birds. They are protected by law in nearly every state in the Union, but their bright plumage renders them among the most saleable of birds for millinery purposes, and despite protective laws considerable numbers are still killed for the hat trade. It is hardly necessary to point out that their importance as insect eaters everywhere demands their protection, but more especially in the cotton belt. Night Hawk. The Night Hawk, or Bullbat, also renders important service in the destruction of weevils, and catches them on the wing in considerable numbers, especially during its migration. Unfortunately, the Night Hawk is eaten for food in some sections of the south, and considerable numbers are shot for this purpose. The bird's value for food, however, is infinitesimal as compared with the service it renders the cotton grower and other agriculturalists, and every effort should be made to spread broadcast a knowledge of its usefulness as a weevil destroyer, with a view to its complete protection. Swallows. Of all the birds now known to destroy weevils, Swallows are the most important. Six species occur in Texas and the southern states. The Martin, the Barn Swallow, the Bank Swallow, the Rough Wing, and the Cliff Swallow breed locally in Texas, and all of them except the Cliff Swallow breed in the other cotton states. The White Bellied or Tree Swallow nests only in the north, and by far the greater number of Cliff Swallows nest in the north and west. As showing how a colony of Martins thrives when provided with sufficient room to multiply, an experiment by Mr. J. Warren Jacobs of Wainsburg, Pennsylvania may be cited. The first year five pairs were introduced to occupy the single box provided, and raised eleven young. The fourth year three large boxes divided into ninety-nine rooms contained fifty-three pairs, and they raised about a hundred and seventy-five young. The colony was thus nearly three hundred strong at the close of the fourth season. The effect of this number of hungry Martins on the insects infesting the neighborhood may be imagined. From the standpoint of the farmer and the cotton grower, Swallows are among the most useful birds. Especially designed by nature to capture insects in mid-air, their powers of flight and endurance are unexcelled, and in their own field they have no competitors. Their peculiar value to the cotton grower consists in the fact that, like the Nighthawk, they capture bull weevils when flying over the fields, which no other birds do. Flycatchers snap up the weevils near trees in shrubbery. Wrens hunt them out when concealed under bark or rubbish. Blackbirds catch them on the ground, as do the killdeer, titlark, meadowlark, and others, while Orioles hunt for them on the bulls. But it is the peculiar function of Swallows to catch the weevils as they are making long flights, leaving the cotton fields in search of hiding places in which to winter or entering them to continue their work of devastation. Means have been taken to inform residents of the northern states of the value of the Swallow tribe to agriculturists, generally, and particularly to cotton planters, in the belief that the number of Swallows breeding in the north can be substantially increased. The cooperation of the northern states is important, since birds bred in the north migrate directly through the southern states in the fall on their way to the distant tropics, and also in the spring on their return. Important as it is to increase the number of northern breeding Swallows, it is still more important to increase the number nesting in the south, and to induce the birds there to extend their range over as much of the cotton area as possible. Nesting birds spend much more time in the south than migrants, and during the weeks when the old birds are feeding young, they are almost incessantly engaged in the pursuit of insects. It is not, of course, claimed that birds alone can stay the ravages of the cotton bull weevil in Texas, but they materially aid in checking the advance of the pest into the other cotton states. Important auxiliaries in destroying these insects, birds aid in reducing their numbers within safe limits, and once within safe limits in keeping them there. Hence it is for the interests of the cotton states that special efforts must be made to protect and care for the weevil eating species, and to increase their numbers in every way possible. End of the Circular Condensed Notes on the Food Habits of Certain North American Birds Millions of Americans and near-Americans, both old and young, now need to be shown the actual figures that represent the value of our birds as destroyers of the insects, weeds, and the small rodents that are swarming to overrun and devour our fields, orchards, and forests. Will our people never learn that in fighting pests, the birds are worth ten times more to men than all the poisons, sprays, and traps that were ever invented or used? We cannot spray our forests, and if the wild birds do not protect them from insects, nothing will. If you will watch a warbler collecting the insects out of the top of a seventy-foot forest oak, busy as a bee hour after hour, it will convince you that the birds do for the forests that which every man with all his resources cannot accomplish. You will then realize that to this country every woodpecker, chickadee, titmouse, creeper, and warbler is easily worth its weight in gold. The killing of any member of these groups of birds should be punished by a fine of twenty-five dollars. The Bobwhite And take the Bobwhite quail, for example, and the weeds of the farm. To kill weeds costs money, hard cash that the farmer earns by toil. Does the farmer put forth strenuous efforts to protect the bird of all birds that does most to help him keep down the weeds? Far from it. All that the average farmer thinks about the quail is of killing it, for a few ounces of meat on the table. It is fairly beyond question that of all birds that influence the fortunes of the farmers and fruit growers of North America, the common quail, or Bobwhite, is one of the most valuable. It stays on the farm all year round. When insects are most numerous and busy, Bobwhite devotes to them his entire time. He cheerfully fights them from sixteen to eighteen hours per day. When the insects are gone, he turns his attention to the weeds that are striving to seed down the fields for another year. Occasionally he gets a few grains of wheat that have been left on the ground by the reapers, but he does no damage. In California where the valley quail once were very numerous, they sometimes consumed altogether too much wheat for the good of the farmers, but outside of California I believe such occurrences are unknown. Let us glance over Bobwhite's bill of fare. Weed seeds. One hundred and twenty-nine different weeds have been found to contribute to the quail's bill of fare. Crops and stomachs have been found crowded with ragweed seeds to the number of one thousand, while others had eaten as many seeds of crabgrass. A bird shot at Pinebrook, New Jersey in October 1902 had eaten five thousand seeds of green foxtail grass, and one killed on Christmas Day at Kinsvale, Virginia had taken about ten thousand seeds of the pigweed. In bulletin number twenty-one, Biological Survey, it is calculated that if in Virginia and North Carolina there are four bobwhites to every square mile, and each bird consumes one ounce of seed per day, the total destruction to weed seeds from September 1st to April 30th in those states alone will be one thousand three hundred forty-one tons. In 1910 Mrs. Margaret Morse Nice of Clark University Worcester, Massachusetts finished and contributed to the Journal of Economic Entomology, volume three, number three, a masterful investigation of the food of the bobwhite. It should be in every library in this land. Mrs. Nice publishes the entire list of 129 species of weed seeds consumed by the quail, and it looks like a rogues gallery. Here is an astounding record which proves once more that truth is stranger than fiction. Number of seeds eaten by a bobwhite in one day. Pigweed twelve thousand, plantain twelve thousand five hundred, rabbit's foot clover thirty thousand, round-headed bush clover one thousand eight hundred, smartweed two thousand two hundred fifty, white verveying eighteen thousand seven hundred fifty, water smartweed two thousand. Notably bad insects eaten by the bobwhite, Professor Jed and Mrs. Nice, Colorado potato beetle, cucumber beetle, chinch bug, bean leaf beetle, wire worm, may beetle, corn bill bug, imbricated snout beetle, plant lice, cabbage butterfly, mosquito, squash beetle, clover leaf beetle, cotton bull weevil, cotton bull worm, striped garden caterpillar, cut worms, grasshoppers, corn louse ants, rocky mountain locust, codling moth, canker worm, hessian fly, stable fly. Summary of the quail's insect food. Orthoptera, grasshoppers and locusts, thirteen species. Hemiptera, bugs, twenty four species. Homoptera, leafhoppers and plant lice, six species. Lepidoptera, moths, caterpillars, cut worms, etc., nineteen species. Diptera, flies, eight species. Coleoptera, beetles, sixty one species. Hymenoptera, ants, wasps, slugs, eight species. Other insects, six species. Total, a hundred and forty five species. A few sample meals of insects. The following are records of single individual meals of the bobwhite. Of grasshoppers, eighty four. Chinch bugs, a hundred. Squash bugs, twelve. Army worm, twelve. Cut worm, twelve. Beetles, five hundred and sixty eight and three hours. Cotton bull-wavel, forty seven. Flies, one thousand three hundred fifty. Rose slugs, one thousand two hundred eighty six. Miscellaneous insects consumed by a laying hen quail, one thousand five hundred thirty two, of which one thousand were grasshoppers. Total weight of the lot, twenty four point six grams. F. M. Howard of Beville, Texas, wrote to the U.S. Bureau of Entomology that the bobwhite shot in his vicinity had their crops filled with the weevils. Another farmer reported his cotton fields full of quail and an entire absence of weevils. Texas and Georgia papers, please copy. And yet, because of its few pitiful ounces of flesh, two million gunners and ten thousand lawmakers think of the quail only as a bird that can be shot and eaten. Throughout a great portion of its former range, including New York and New Jersey, the species is surely uncertainty on the verge of total extinction. And yet, sportsmen gravely discuss the bag limit and enforcement of the bag limit law as a means of bringing back this almost banished species. Such folly and grown men is very trying. To my friend the Epicure, the next time you regale a good appetite with blue points, terrapin stew, filet of soul, and saddle of mutton touched up here and there with the highlights of rare old sherry, rich claret, and dry monopole, pause as the dead quail is laid before you on a funeral pyre of toast. Consider this. Here lies the charred remains of the farmer's ally and friend, poor bobwhite. In life he devoured one hundred forty-five different kinds of bad insects and the seeds of one hundred and twenty-nine anathema weeds. For the smaller pests of the farm he was the most marvelous engine of destruction that God ever put together of flesh and blood. He was good, beautiful, and true, and his small life was blameless. And here he lies, dead, snatched away from his field of labour and destroyed an order that I might be tempted to dine three minutes longer after I have already eaten to satiety. Then go on and finish bobwhite. The case of the robin. For a long time this bird has been slaughtered in the south for food regardless of the agricultural interests of the north. No southern gentleman ever shoots robins or songbirds of any kind, but the negroes and poor whites do it. The worst case of recent occurrence was the slaughter in the town of Pittsburgh in North Carolina. It was in January 1912. The mayor of the town, Hon. Bennett Newey, was away from home and during a heavy fall of snow the robins came into town in great numbers to feed upon the berries of the cedar trees. In order that the birds might be killed without restriction the Board of Aldermen suspended the ordinance against the firing of guns in the town and permitted the inhabitants to kill the robins. A disgraceful carnival of slaughter immediately followed in which about all the male population participated. Regarding this, Mayor Newey later on wrote to the editor of Bird Lore as follows, Hearing of this, on my return I went to the Aldermen, all of whom were guilty, and told them that they and all others who were guilty would have to be fined. Three out of the five submitted and paid up, but they insisted that the ordinance be changed to read exactly as it is written here with the exception that all could shoot robins in the town until the 1st of March, whereupon I resigned, as was stated. Bird Lore. Volume 14, issue 2, page 140. The mayor was quite right. The robin butchers of Pittsburgh were not worthy to be governed by him. The Meadowlark is one of the most valuable birds that frequent farming regions. Throughout the year insects make up 73% of its food, wheat seeds 12%, and grain only 5%. During the insect season, insects constitute 90% of its food. The Baltimore Oriole is as valuable to man as it is beautiful. Its nest is the most wonderful example of bird architecture in our land. In May, insects constitute 90% of this bird's food. For the entire year, insects and other animal food make 83.4% and vegetable matter 16.6%. The Crow Blackbird feeds as follows throughout the whole year. Insects 26.9%, other animal food 3.4%, corn 37.2%, oats 2.9%, wheat 4.8%, other grain 1.6%, fruits 5%, wheat seeds and mast 18.2%. This report was based on the examination by the Biological Survey of 2346 Stemics and the charge that the blackbird is an habitual robber of bird's nests was disproved by the examinations. Flycatchers The high watermark in insect destruction by our birds is reached by the flycatchers, dull-colored, modest-mannered little creatures that do their work so quietly you hardly notice them. All you see in your treetops is a two-foot-flit or glide, now here and now there, as the leaves and high branches are combed of their insect life. Bulletin No. 44 of the Department of Agriculture gives the resituem of an exhausting examination of 3,398 warbler stomachs from 17 species of birds and the result is 94.99% of insect food, mostly bad insects too, and 5.01% vegetable food. What more can any forester ask of a bird? The sparrows All our sparrows are great consumers of wheat seeds. Professor Beale has calculated the total quantity consumed in Iowa in one year, in the days when sparrows were normally numerous, at 1,750,000 pounds. The American goldfinch, as a weed destroyer, has few equals. It makes the specialty of the seeds of the members of the order, compositei, and is especially fond of the seeds of ragweed, thistles, wild lettuce, and wild sunflower. But small and beautiful as this bird is, there are hundreds of thousands of grown men in America who would shoot it and eat it if they dared. The hawks and owls Let no other state repeat the error that once was made in Pennsylvania when that state enacted in 1885 her now famous hawk and owl bounty law. In order to accomplish the wholesale destruction of her birds of prey, a law was passed providing for the payment of a bounty of 50 cents each for the scalps of hawks and owls. Immediately the slaughter began. In two years 180,000 scalps were brought in, and 90,000 dollars were paid out for them. It was estimated that the saving to the farmers in poultry amounted to 1 dollar for each 1,205 dollars paid out in bounties. The awakening came even more swiftly than the ornithologists expected. By the end of two years from the passage of the hawk law, the farmers found their fields and orchards thoroughly overrun by destructive rats, mice, and insects, and they appealed to the legislature for a quick repeal of the law. With all possible haste this was brought about, but it was estimated by competent judges that in damages to their crops, the hawk law cost the people of Pennsylvania nothing less than 2 million dollars. Moral. Don't make any laws providing for the destruction of hawks and owls until you have exact knowledge and know in advance what the results will be. In the space at my disposal for this subject it is impossible to treat our species of hawks and owls separately. The reader can find in the American natural history 15 pages of text, numerous illustrations, and many figures elucidating this subject. Unfortunately Dr. Fisher's admirable work on the hawks and owls has long been out of print and unobtainable. There are however a few observations that must be recorded here. Each bird of prey is a balanced equation. Each one, I think without a single exception, does some damage chiefly in the destruction of valuable wild birds. The value of the poultry destroyed by hawks and owls is very small in comparison with their killing of wild prey. Many of the species do not touch domestic poultry. At the same time when a hawk of any kind or an owl sets to work deliberately and persistently to clean out a farmer's poultry yard and is actually doing it, that farmer is justified in killing that bird. But the occasional loss of a broiler is not to be regarded as justification for a war of extermination on all the hawks that fly. Individual wild animal nuisances can occasionally become so exasperating as to justify the use of the gun, once scarecrow's fail. But in all such circumstances the greatest judgment and much forbearance also is desirable and necessary. The value of hawks and owls rests upon their perpetual warfare on the millions of destructive rats, mice, moles, shrews, weasels, rabbits and English sparrows that constantly prey upon what the farmer produces. On this point a few illustrations must be given. One of the most famous comes via Dr. Fisher from one of the towers of the Smithsonian buildings and relates to the barn owl, Strix Flamilla. Two hundred pellets consisting of bones, hair and feathers from one nesting pair of these birds were collected and found to contain four hundred and fifty-four skulls of which two hundred and twenty-five were of meadow mice, a hundred seventy-nine of house mice, two of pine mice, twenty were of rats, six of jumping mice, twenty were from shrews, one was of a mole, and one of espersparrow, one bird, and four hundred and fifty-three noxious mammals. Compare this with the record of any cat on earth. Anything that the barn owl wants from me or from any farmer should at once be offered to it on a silver tray. This bird is often called the monkey-faced owl and it should be called the farmer's friend owl. The long-eared owl, Azio Wilsonianus, has practically the same kind of a record as the barn owl, scores of mice, rats and shrews destroyed and only an occasional small bird. Its nearest relative, the short-eared owl, A. A. A. Patrinus, may be described in the same words. The great-horned owl fills us with conflicting passions. For the long list of dead rats and mice, pocket-gophers, skunks and weasels to his credit we think well of him and wish his prosperity. For the songbirds, roughed grouse, quail and other game birds, domestic poultry, squirrels, chipmunks and hares that he kills, we hate him and would cheerfully wring his neck wearing gauntlets. He does an unusual amount of good and a terrible amount of harm. It is impossible to strike a balance for him and determine with mathematical accuracy whether he should be shot or permitted to live. At all events, whether Bubo comes up for trial, we must give the feathered devil his due. The names chicken-hawk or hen-hawk, as applied, usually refer to the red-shouldered or red-tailed species. Neither of these is really very destructive to poultry, but both are very destructive to mice, rats, and other pestiferous creatures. Both are large, showy birds, not so very swift in flight, and rather easy to approach. Neither of them should be destroyed. Not even though they do once in a great while take a chicken or wild bird. They pay for them four times over by rat-killing. Mr. J. Alden Loring states that he once knew a pair of red-shouldered hawks to nest within 50 rods of a poultry farm on which there were 800 young chickens and 400 ducks, not one of which was taken. See the American Natural History, pages 229-230. Hawks that should be destroyed. There are two small, fierce, daring, swift-winged hawks, both of which are so very destructive that they deserve to be shot whenever possible. They are a cooper's hawk, Excipitor Cooperi, and the sharp-shinned hawk, a V-locks. They are closely related and look much alike, but the former has a rounded tail and the latter a square one. In killing them, please do not kill any other hawk by mistake, and if you do not positively recognize the bird, don't shoot. The goshawk is a bad one, and so is the peregrine falcon or duck-hawk. Both deserve death, but they are so rare that we need not take them into account. Some of the hawks and owls are very destructive to songbirds and members of the grouse family. In 159 stomachs of sharp-shinned hawks, 99 contained songbirds and woodpeckers. In 133 stomachs of cooper's hawks, 34 contained poultry or gamebirds, and 52 contained other birds. The gamebirds included eight quail, one roughed grouse, and five pigeons. The woodpeckers. These birds are the natural guardians of the trees. If we had enough of them, our forests would be fairly safe from insect pests. Of the six or seven North American species that are of the most importance to our forests, the Downey woodpecker, Dryobades pubescens, is accorded first rank. It is one of the smallest species. The contents of 140 stomachs consisted of 74% insects, 25% vegetable matter, and 1% sand. The insects were ants, beetles, bugs, flies, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and a few spiders. The hairy woodpecker, Dryobades philosis. A very close relation of the preceding species is also small, and his food supply is as follows. Insects, 68%, vegetable matter, 31%, mineral one. The golden-winged woodpecker, Coloptes orades, is the largest enhancement of all the woodpeckers that we really see in evidence. The piloted is one of the largest, but we never see it. This bird makes a specialty of ants, of which it devours immense numbers. Its food is 56% animal matter, 3 fourths of which is ants, 39% vegetable matter, and 5% mineral matter. The red-headed woodpecker is a serious food eater, and many complaints have been lodged against him. Exactly one half of his food supply consists of vegetable matter, chiefly wild berries, acorns, beech nuts, and the seeds of wild shrubs and weeds. We may infer that about 1 tenth of his food in summer and fall consists of cultivated fruit and berries. His proportion of cultivated foods is entirely too small to justify anyone in destroying this species. In view of the prevalence of insect pests in the state of New York, I have spent hours in trying to devise a practical plan for making woodpeckers about ten times more numerous than they now are. Contributions to this problem will be thankfully received. Yes, we do put out pork, fat, and suet in winter, quantities of it, but I grieve to say that today in the zoological park there is not more than one woodpecker for every ten that there were twelve years ago. One. Only one answer is possible. They have been shot and eaten by the gorillas of destruction. Surely no man of intelligence needs to be told to protect woodpeckers to the utmost and to feed them in winter, nail up fat pork or large chunks of suet on the south sides of conspicuous trees, and encourage the woodpeckers, nut hatches, chickadees, and titmice to remain in your woods through the long and dreary winter. The English sparrow is a nuisance in a pest, because it drives away from the house and the orchard the house Wren, Bluebird, Phoebe, Purple Martin, and Swallow, any one of which is more valuable to man than a thousand English sparrows. I have never yet seen one of the pest sparrows catch an insect, but Chief Forester Merkel says that he has seen one catching and eating small mods. There is one place in the country where English sparrows have not yet come, and whenever they do appear there they will meet a hostile reception. I shall kill everyone that comes for the sake of retaining the Wrens, Catbirds, Phoebe's, and Thrushes that now literally make home happy for my family. A good way to discourage sparrows is to shoot them en masse when they are feeding on road refuse, such as the white-throated white crown and other sparrows never touch. Persistent destruction of their nests will check the nuisance. The Shorebirds Who is there who thinks of the shorebirds as being directly beneficial to man by reason of their food habits. I warrant not more than one man in every ten thousand. We think of them only as possible food. The amount of actual cash value benefit that the shorebirds confer upon man through the destruction of bad things is, in comparison with the number of birds, enormous. The Department of Agriculture never publishes and circulates anything that has already been published, no matter how valuable to the public at large. Our rules are different. Because I know that many of the people of our country need the information, I'm going to reprint here as an object lesson and a warning. The whole of the biological survey's valuable and timely circular number 79 issued April 11th, 1911, and written by Professor W. L. McAtee. It should open the eyes of the American people to two things, the economic value of these birds, and the fact that they are everywhere in their extermination. Our vanishing shorebirds by Professor W. L. McAtee. The term shorebird is applied to a group of long-legged slender-billed and usually plainly colored birds belonging to the order of the Mekoli. More than 60 species of them occur in North America. True to their name, they frequent the shores of all bodies of water, large and small, but many of them are equally at home on planes and prairies. Throughout the eastern United States shorebirds are fast vanishing. While formerly numerous species swarmed along the Atlantic coast and in the prairie regions, many of them have been so reduced that extermination seems imminent. The black-bellied plover or beetle head which occurred along the Atlantic seaboard and great numbers years ago is now seen only as a straggler. The golden plover, once exceedingly abundant east of the Great Plains, is now rare. Vast hordes of long-billed poachers formerly wintered in Louisiana. Now they occur only in infrequent flocks of half a dozen or less. The Eskimo curlew within the last decade has probably been exterminated and the other curlews greatly reduced. In fact, all the larger species of shorebirds have suffered severely. So adverse to shorebirds are present conditions that the wonder is that any escape. In both Fall and Spring, they are shot along the whole route of their migration north and south. Their habit of decoying readily and persistently, coming back in flocks to the decoys again and again in spite of murderous volleys greatly lessens their chances of escape. The breeding grounds of some of the species in the United States and Canada have become greatly restricted by the extension of agriculture and their winter ranges in South America have probably been restricted in the same way. Unfortunately shorebirds lay fewer eggs than any of the other species generally termed game birds. They deposit only three or four eggs and hatch only one brood yearly. Nor are they in any wise immune from the great mortality known to prevail among the smaller birds. Their eggs and young are constantly preyed upon during the breeding season by crows, gulls and jaggers and the far northern country to which so many of them resort to nest is subject to sudden cold storms which kill many of the young. In the more temperate climate of the United States small birds in general do not bring up more than one young bird for every two eggs laid. Sometimes the proportion of loss is much greater actual count revealing a destruction of 70 to 80% of nests and eggs. Shorebirds with sets of three or four eggs probably do not on the average rear more than two young for each breeding pair. It is not surprising therefore that birds of this family with their limited powers of reproduction melt away under the relentless warfare raged upon them. Until recent years shorebirds have had almost no protection. Thus the species most in need of stringent protection have really had the least. No useful birds which lay only three or four eggs should be retained on the list of game birds. The shorebirds should be relieved from persecution and if we desire to save from extermination a majority of the species action must be prompt. The protection of shorebirds need not be based solely on aesthetic or sentimental grounds for few groups of birds more thoroughly deserve protection from an economic standpoint. Shorebirds perform an important service by their inroads upon mosquitoes some of which play so conspicuous apart in the dissemination of diseases. Thus nine species are known to feed upon mosquitoes and hundreds of the larvae or wigglers were found in several stomachs. 53% of the food of 28 northern fallow ropes from the locality consisted of mosquito larvae. The insects eaten include the salt marsh mosquito A.D. Solicitans for the suppression of which the city of New Jersey has gone to great expense. The nine species of shorebirds known to eat mosquitoes are northern fallow rope semi-palmated sandpiper Wilson fallow rope stilt sandpiper kill deer, pectoral sandpiper semi-palmated plover baird sandpiper leased sandpiper cattle and other livestock also are seriously molested by mosquitoes as well as by another set of pests the horse flies adults and larvae of these flies have been found in the stomachs of the dowager the pectoral sandpiper the Hudsonian godwitch and the kill deer. Two species of shorebirds the kill deer and upland plover still further befriend cattle and North American fever tick. Among other fly larvae consumed are those of the crane flies leather jackets devoured by the following species northern fallow rope pectoral sandpiper Wilson fallow rope baird sandpiper woodcock upland plover jacksnap kill deer Crane fly larvae are frequently seriously destructive locally in grass and wheat fields numerous bird enemies shorebirds rank high another group of insects of which the shorebirds are very fond is grasshoppers severe local infestations of grasshoppers frequently involving the destruction of many acres of corn cotton and other crops are by no means exceptional Augie found 23 species of shorebirds feeding on rocky mountain locusts in Nebraska some of them consuming large numbers as shown below in conditions grasshoppers are a staple food of many members of the shorebird family and the following species are known to feed on them Northern fallow rope avocet blackneck stilt woodcock jacksnap dowager robinsnip white-rumped sandpiper baird sandpiper leased sandpiper buff-breasted sandpiper spotted sandpiper long-billed curlew kildere semi-palmated plover marbled godwit ringed plover yellow legs mountain plover solitary sandpiper turnstone upland plover shorebirds are fond of other insect pests of forage and grain crops including the army worm which is known to be eaten by the kildere and spotted sandpiper also cutworms among whose enemies are the avocet woodcock pectoral and baird sandpipers the upland plover and kildere two caterpillar enemies of cotton the cotton worm and the cotton cutworm are eaten by the upland plover and kildere the ladder bird feeds also on caterpillars of the genus flegithontius which includes the tobacco and tomato worms the principal farm crops have many destructive beetle enemies also and some of these are eagerly eaten by shorebirds the bull weevil and cloverleaf weevil are eaten by the upland plover and kildere the rice weevil by the kildere the cowpeat weevil by the upland plover and the clover root curculio by the following species of shorebirds northern fallow rope white-rumped sandpiper pectoral sandpiper upland plover, baird sandpiper kildere the last two eat also other weevils which attack cotton, grapes and sugarbeats billbugs which often do considerable damage to corn seem to be a favourite food of some of the shorebirds they are eaten by the wilson fallow rope avocet black-necked stilt pectoral sandpiper kildere and upland plover they are an important element of the ladder's diet and no fewer than eight species of them have been found in its food wire worms and their adult forms click beetles are devoured by the northern fallow rope woodcock, jacksnap, pectoral sandpiper kildere and upland plover the last three feed also on the southern corn leaf beetle and the last two upon the grapevine colaspus other shorebirds that eat leaf beetles are the wilson fallow rope and dowager crayfishes which are a pest in rice and corn fields in the south and which injured levees are favourite food of the black-necked stilt and several other shorebirds feed upon them notably the jacksnipe, robinsnipe spotted sandpiper, upland plover and kildere thus it is evident that shorebirds render important aid by devouring the enemies of farm crops and in other ways and their services are appreciated by those who have observed the birds in the field thus W. A. Clark of Corpus Christi, Texas reports that upland plovers are industrious in following the plow and eating the grubs that destroy garden stuff, corn and cotton crops H. W. Tinkham of Fall River, Massachusetts says of the spotted sandpiper three pairs nested in a young orchard behind my house and adjacent to my garden I did not see them once go to the shore for food, about 1500 feet away but I did see them many times make faithful search of my garden for cutworms, spotted squash bugs and greenflies cutworms and cabbageworms were their special prey after the young could fly they still kept at work in my garden and showed the shore until about August 15th they and a flock of quails just over the wall helped me wonderfully in the uncultivated parts of their range also shorebirds search out and destroy many creatures that are detrimental to man's interest several species prey upon the predacious diving beetles which are a nuisance in fish hatcheries and destroy many insects the natural food of fishes the birds now known to take these beetles are northern falerope, dowager, wilson falerope robin snipe, avocet pectoral sandpiper lacnex stilt red-backed sandpiper, jack snipe kildear large numbers of marine worms of the genus nereus which prey upon oysters are eaten by shorebirds these worms are common on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and are eaten by shorebirds wherever they occur it is not uncommon to find that from 100 to 150 of them have been eaten at one meal the birds known to feed upon them are northern falerope white-rumped sandpiper dowager, stilt sandpiper red-backed sandpiper robin snipe, purple sandpiper kildear the economic record of the shorebirds deserves nothing but praise these birds injure no crop but on the contrary feed upon many of the worst enemies of agriculture it is worth recalling that their diet includes such pests as the rocky mountain locust and other injurious grasshoppers the army worm cut worms, cabbage worms cotton worm, cotton cut worm bull weevil, clover leaf weevil clover root cuckoo leo rice weevil, corn bill bugs wire worms, corn leaf beetles cucumber beetles, white grubs and such foes of stock as the Texas fever tick horse flies and mosquitoes their warfare on crayfishes must not be overlooked nor must we forget the more personal debt of gratitude we owe them for preying on mosquitoes they are the most important bird enemies of these pests known to us shorebirds have been hunted until only a remnant of their once vast numbers is left their limited powers of reproduction coupled with the natural vicissitudes of the breeding period make their increase slow and peculiarly expose them to danger of extermination in the way of protection a beginning has been made and a continuous close season until 1915 has been established for the following birds the kill deer in Massachusetts in Louisiana the upland clover in Massachusetts and Vermont and the piping clover in Massachusetts but considering the needs and value of these birds this modicum of protection is small indeed the above named species are not the only ones that should be exempt from persecution for all the shorebirds of the United States are in great need of better protection they should be protected first to save them from the danger of extermination and second because of their economic importance so great indeed is their economic value that their retention on the game list and their destruction by sportsmen is a serious loss to agriculture and of the circular the following appeared in the zoological society bulletin for January 1909 from Richard Walter Tomlin of Sydney New South Wales in the sub districts of Robertson and Kangaloon in the Illawarra district of New South Wales what ten years ago was a waving mass of English cox foot and rye grass which had been put in gradually as the dense mine scrub was felled and burnt off is now a barren desert and nine families out of every ten which were renting properties have been compelled to leave the district and take up other lands this is through the grubs having eaten out the grass by the roots plowing proved to be useless as the grubs ate out the grass just the same whilst there recently I was informed that it took three years from the time the grubs were first seen until today to accomplish this complete devastation in other words three years ago the grubs began to work in the beautiful country of green mountains and running streams the birds had all been ruthlessly shot and destroyed in that district but the absence of bird life the two sub districts I have mentioned have an area of about 30 square miles and form a table land about 1200 feet above sea level the same kind of common sense that teaches men to go in when it rains and keep out of fiery furnaces teaches us that as a business proposition it is to man's interest to protect the birds make them plentiful and keep them so when we strike the birds we hurt ourselves the protection of our insect eating and seed eating birds is a cash proposition protect or pay were I a farmer no gun ever should be fired on my premises at any bird save the English sparrow and the three bad hawks any man who would kill my friend Bob White I would treat as an enemy the man who would shoot and eat any of the songbirds, woodpeckers or shorebirds that worked for me I would surely molest every farmer should post every foot of his lands cultivated and not cultivated the farmer who does not do so is his own enemy and he needs a guardian at this stage of wildlife extermination it is impossible to make our bird protection laws too strict or too far reaching the remnant of our birds should be protected with clubs and guns if necessary all our shorebirds should be accorded a 10 year closed season don't ask the gunners whether they will agree to it or not they will not agree to it never but our duty is clear to go ahead and do it End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of Our Vanishing Wildlife this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sarah Jennings Our Vanishing Wildlife by William T. Hornaday Chapter 24 Game and Agriculture Deer as Food Supply As a state and county asset the white-tailed deer contains possibilities that as yet seem to be ignored by the American people as a whole it is quite time to consider that persistent prolific and tooth-thumb animal the proposition that large herds of horned game cannot becomingly roam at will over farms and vineyards worth $100 per acre or more. Generally speaking there is but one country in the world that breaks this well-nigh universal rule and that country is India on the plains between an adjacent to the Ganges and the Jumna for two thousand years herds of black buck or sassin antelope have roamed over cultivated fields so thickly garnished with human beings that today the rifle-shooting sportsman stands an hourly peril of bagging a $500 native every time he fires antelope wherever rich agricultural lands exist the big game must give way from those lands today the bison could not survive in Iowa eastern Nebraska or eastern Kansas any longer than a Shawnee Indian would last on the Bowery it was for doomed that the elk, deer, bear and wild turkey should vanish from the rich farming regions of the east and the middle west today in British East Africa lions are being hunted with dogs at wholesale because they are a pest to the settlers and to the surviving herds of big game at the same time the settlers who are striving to rest the fertile plains of British East Africa from the domain of savagery declare that the African buffalo the zebra, the congoni and the elephant are public nuisances that must be suppressed by the rifle even the most ardent friend of wildlife must admit that when a settler has laboriously fenced his fields and plowed and sowed only to have his whole crop ruined in one night by a herd of fence-breaking zebras the event is sufficient to abrade the nerves of the party most in interest while I take no stock in stories of dozens of rogue elephants that require treatment with the rifle and of grown men being imperiled by savage gazelles we admit that there are times when wild animals can make nuisances of themselves let us consider that subject now wild animal nuisances complaints have come to me at various times of great destruction of lambs by eagles of trout by blue herons of crops on Long Island by deer of pairs destroyed by birds and of valuable park trees by beavers that chop down trees not wisely but too well I do not, however, include in this category any cherries eaten by robins or orioles or jays for they are of too small importance to consider in this court to meet the legitimate demands for the abatement of unbearable wild animal nuisances I recommend the enactment of a law similar to section 158 of the game laws of New York which provides for the safe and legitimate abatement of unbearable wild creatures as follows section 158 power to take birds and quadrupeds in the event that any species of birds protected by the provisions of section 219 of this article or quadrupeds protected by law shall at any time in any locality become destructive of private or public property the commission shall have power in its discretion to direct any game protector or issue a permit to any citizen of the state to take such species of birds or quadrupeds and dispose of the same in such manner as the commission may provide such permit shall expire within four months after date of issuance this measure should be adopted by every state that is troubled by too many or too aggressive wild mammals or birds but to return to the subject of big game and farming we do not complain of the disappearance of the bison elk, deer, and bear from the farms of the United States and Canada the passing of the big game from all such regions follows the advance of real civilization just so surely and certainly as night follows day this vast land of ours is not wholly composed of rich agricultural lands not by any means there are millions of acres of forest lands good, bad, and indifferent worth from nothing per acre up to one hundred dollars or more there are millions of acres of rocky brush-covered mountains and hills wholly unsuited to agriculture or even horticulture there are other millions of acres of arid plains and arboreal deserts on which nothing but thirst-proof animals thrive the south contains vast pine forests and cypress swamps millions of acres of them of which the average northerner knows less than nothing we cannot stop long enough to look it up but from the green colour on our national map that betokens the forest reserves and from our own personal knowledge of the deserts, swamps, barrens, and rocks that we have seen we make the estimate that fully one third of the total area of the United States is supporting the husbandman who depends for his existence upon tillage of the soil people may talk and write about dry farming all they please but I wish to observe that from dry farming to success is a long shot with many limbs in the way when it rains sufficiently dry farming is a success but otherwise it is not and we hardly wish it were otherwise the logical conclusion of our land that is utterly unfit for agriculture is a great area of land available for occupancy by valuable wild animals every year the people of the United States are wasting uncountable millions of pounds of venison because we are neglecting our opportunities for producing it practically without cost imagine for a moment bestowing upon landowners the ability to stock with white-tailed and Indian sambar deer all the wild lands of the United States that are suitable for those species and permitting only bucks over one year will be shot with the does even reasonably protected the numerical results in annual pounds of good edible flesh fairly challenges the imagination about six years ago Mr. C. C. Worthington's deer in his fenced park at Shawnee on Delaware Pennsylvania became so numerous and so burdensome that he opened his fences and permitted about one thousand head to go free we are losing each year a very large and valuable asset in the intangible form of a million-hardy deer that we might have raised but did not our vast domains of wooded mountains, hills, and valleys lie practically untenanted by big game save in a few exceptional spots we lose because we are lawless we lose because we are too in-provenant to conserve large forms of wildlife unless we are compelled to do so by the stern edict of the law the law-breakers, the game-hogs the conscience-less doe and fawn slayers are everywhere ten percent of all the grown men now in the United States are today poachers, thieves, and law-breakers or else they are liable to become so tomorrow if you doubt it try risking your new umbrella unprotected in the next mixed company of one hundred men that you encounter in such a situation that it will be easy to get away with it we could raise two million deer each year on our empty wild lands without fences it would take half a million real game wardens on duty from dawn until dark to protect them from destructive slaughter at present our land of liberty contains only 9,354 game wardens the states that contain the greatest areas of wild lands naturally lack in population and in tax funds and not one such state can afford to put into the field even half enough salaried game wardens to really protect her game from surreptitious slaughter the surplus of personal liberty in this liberty-cursed land is a curse to the big game the average frontiersman will never admit the divine right of kings but he does ardently believe in the divine right of settlers to reach out and take any of the products of nature that they happen to fancy wild meat as a food supply we hear much these days about the cost of living but thus far we have made no move to mend the situation with coal going straight up to ten dollars per ton beef going up to fifteen dollars per hundred on the hoof and weed and hay going up heaven alone knows where it is time for all Americans who are not rich to arouse and take thought for the morrow what are we going to do about it the tariff on the coarser necessities of life is now booked to come down but what about the fresh meat supply I desire to point out that between Bangor and San Diego and from Key West to Bellingham our country contains millions of acres of wild practically uninhabited forests rough foothills badlands and mountains that could produce two million deer each year without deducting fifty thousand a year from the wealth of the country I grant that in the total number of deer that would be necessary to produce two million deer per annum the farms situated on the edge of forests and actually within the forests would suffer somewhat from the depredations of those deer as I will presently show by documentary records every one of those individual damages that exceeds two dollars in value could be compensated in cash and afterward leave on the credit side of the deer account an enormous annual balance stop for a moment you enterprising and restless men and women who travel all over the United States and think of the illimitable miles of unbroken forests that you have looked upon from your Pullman windows in the east, in the south and in southern Canada recall the wooded mountains of the Appalachian system the White Mountain region the pine forests of the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf States the forests of Tennessee, Arkansas and southern Missouri of northern Minnesota and every state of the Rocky Mountain region then think of the silent and untouched forests of the Pacific Coast and tell me whether you think five million deer scattered through the forests would make any visible impression upon them that would be only about 25 times as many as there are now I think the forests would not be overpopulated and they would produce two million killable deer each year last year 11,000 deer were forced down out of their hiding places in the Rocky Mountains and were killed in Montana even the natives had not dreamed there were so many available and they were slaughtered not wisely it is not right that six members of one family should hog 12 deer in one season at present no deer supply can stand such slaughter assuming that the people of the United States could be educated into the idea of so conserving deer that they could draw two million head per year from the general stock what would it be worth it is not very difficult to estimate the value of a deer when the whole animal can be utilized in various portions of the United States deer vary in size but I shall take all this into account and try to strike a fair average in some sections where deer are large and heavy a full grown buck is easily worth 25 dollars let him who doubts it try to replace those generous pounds of flesh with purchased beef and mutton and veal and see how far 25 dollars will go toward it every man who has a householder knows full well how little meat one dollar will buy at this time I think that throughout the United States as a whole every full grown deer male or female contains an average 10 dollars worth of good meat I know of one large preserve which annually sells its surplus of deer at that price wholesale to dealers and in New York City doubtless in many other cities also venison often has sold in the market at 1 dollar per pound 2 million deer at 10 dollars each mean 20 million dollars the licenses for the killing of 2 million deer should cost 1 million men 1 dollar each and that would pay 1,666 new game wardens each 50 dollars per month all the year round the damages that would need to be paid to farmers on account of crops injured by deer would be so small that each county could take care of its own cases from its own treasury as is done in the state of Vermont there are certain essentials to the realization of a dream of 2 million deer per year that are absolutely required they are neither obscure nor impossible each state and each county proposing to stock its vacant woods with deer must resolutely educate its own people in the necessity of playing fair about the killing of deer and giving every man and every deer a square deal this is not impossible not as a general thing even though it may be so in some specially lawless communities if the leading men of the state and the county will take this matter seriously in hand it can be done in 2 years time the American people are not insensible to appeals to reason when these appeals are made by their own home folks the governors, senators assemblymen, judges, mayors and justices of the peace could if they would make a campaign of education and appeal that would result in the creation of an immense volume of free wild food in every state that possesses wild lands when the shoe of necessity pinches the people hard enough remember the possibilities in deer the best wild animal to furnish a serious food supply is the whitetail deer this is because of its persistence and fertility the elk is too large for general use an elk carcass cannot be carried on a horse it is impossible to get a sled or a wagon to where it lies and so fully half of it is usually wasted the mule deer is good for the rocky mountains and can live where the whitetail cannot but it is too easy to shoot the columbian black tail is the natural species for the forests of the pacific states but it is a trifle small in size the example of vermont in order to show that all the above is not based on empty theory regarding the stalking of forests with deer their wonderful powers of increase and the practical handling of the damage question let us take the experience and the fine example of vermont in april 1875 a few sportsmen of rutland of whom the late Henry W. Cheney was one procured in the Outer Rondacks thirteen whitetail deer six bucks and seven does these were liberated in a forest six miles from rutland and beyond being protected from slaughter they were left to shift for themselves they increased slowly at first then rapidly in 1997 they had become so numerous that it seemed right to have a short annual open season and kill a few from first to last many of those deer have been killed contrary to law in 1904-5 it was known that 294 head were destroyed in that way and undoubtedly there were others that were not reported damages to crops by deer for several years past the various counties of vermont have been paying farmers for damages inflicted upon their crops by deer clearly it is more just that counties should settle these damages than that they should be paid from the state treasury because the counties paying damages have large compensation in the value of the deer killed each year the hunting appears to be open to all persons who hold licenses from the state in order that the public at large may know the cost of the vermont system I offer the following digest compiled from the last biennial report of the state fish and game commissioner damages paid for deer depredations in vermont during two years total damages paid from June 8, 1908 to June 22, 1910 $4,865.98 total number of claims paid $311 number of claims under $5 $80 between $5 and $10 $102 over 25 and under $221 $23 between $50 and $100 $11 in excess of $100 $4 in excess of $200 $1 largest claim paid $326.50 value of whitetail deer having noted the fact that in two years 1908-9 the people of vermont paid out $4,865 deer it is of interest to determine whether that money was wisely expended in other words, did it pay we have seen that in the years 1908-9 the people of vermont killed legally and illegally and converted to use $7186 deer this does not include the deer killed by dogs and by accidents regarding the value of a full grown deer it must be remembered that much depends upon the locality of the carcass or pittsburgh or chicago a whole deer is worth at wholesale at least $25 in vermont where deer are plentiful they are worth a less sum I think that $15 would be a fair figure at least low enough even when computed at $15 per carcass those deer were worth to the people of vermont $107,790 it would seem therefore that the soundness of vermont's policy leaves no room for argument and we hope that other states and also private individuals will profit by vermont's very successful experiment in bringing back the deer to her forests and in increasing the food supply of her people killing female deer to say one word on this subject which might by any possibility be construed as favoring it is like juggling with a lighted torch over a barrel of gunpowder already in pennsylvania at least one gentleman has appeared anxious about the killing of doves which in 999 cases out of every thousand I distinctly and emphatically do not this slaughter of female hoofed game animals is necessarily destructive and reprehensible and not one man out of every 10,000 in this country will ever see the place and time wherein the opposite is true at present there are just two places in America and I think only two wherein there exists the slightest exception on this point the state of vermont is becoming overstocked with deer and the females having some counties not in all become so tame and destructive in orchards, gardens, and farm crops as to constitute a great annoyance for this reason the experiment is being made of permitting doves to be killed under license until their numbers somewhat reduced the first returns from this trial have now come in from the county game wardens of vermont to the state game warden and John W. Titcombe I will quote the gist of the opinion of each the state commissioner says, quote this law should remain in force at least until there is some indication of a decrease in the number of deer warden W. H. Taft Addison county says, quote the killing of doves I believed did away with a good many of these tame deer that cause most of the damage to farmers crops Harry Chase Bennington county says the dole-killing law is, quote, a good law and I sincerely trust it will not be repealed end quote warden Hayward of Rutland county says, quote the majority of farmers in this county are in favor of repealing the dole law a great many doves and young deer almost fawns were killed in this county during the hunting season of 1909 end quote R. W. Wheeler of Rutland county says, quote have the dole law repealed we don't need it end quote H. J. Parcher of Washington county finds that the doves did more damage to the crops and the bucks and he thinks the dole law is, quote a just one, end quote R. L. Frost of Wyndham county judiciously concludes that, quote the law allowing doves to be killed should remain in force one or two seasons more, end quote C. S. Parker of Orleans county says his county is not overstocked with deer and he favors a special act for his county to protect females a summary of the testimony of the wardens is easily made when deer are too plentiful and the over tamed doves become a public nuisance too great to be endured the number should be reduced by regular shooting in the open season but as soon as the proper balance of deer life has been restored, protect the doves once more the pursuit of this policy is safe and sane provided it can be wrought out with the influence of selfishness and reckless disregard for the rights of the next generation on the whole it's handling is like playing with fire and I think there are very very few states on this earth wherein it would be wise or safe to try it as a wise friend once remarked to me give some men a hinge and they'll always try to take a hell in Vermont however the situation is kept so well in hand the law providing for the decrease of the number of doves will be repealed hippopotami and antelopes last year a bill was introduced in lower house of congress proposing to provide funds for the introduction into certain southern states of various animals from Africa especially hippopotami and African antelopes the former were proposed partly for the purpose of ridding navigation of the water hyacinths that are now choking the names of Louisiana and Mississippi the antelopes were to be acclimatized as a food supply for the people at large this measure well illustrates the prevailing disposition of the American people today to ignore and destroy their own valuable natural stock of wild birds and mammals and when they have completed their war of extermination reach out to foreign countries for foreign species instead of preserving the deer of the south the south reaches out for the utterly responsible antelopes of Africa and the preposterous hippopotamus the north joyously exterminates her quail and roughed grouse and goes to Europe for the Hungarian partridge that partridge is a failure here and I am heartily glad of it on the ground that the exterminators of our native species do not deserve success in their efforts to displace our finest native species with others from abroad the hippo antelope proposition is a climax of absurdity in proposing the replacing of valuable native game with impossible foreign species end of chapter 24 chapter 25 of our vanishing wildlife this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org our vanishing wildlife by William T. Hornaday chapter 25 law and sentiment as factors in preservation there is grave danger that through ignorance of the true character of about 80% of the men and boys who shoot wild creatures a great wrong will be done the latter let us not make a fatal mistake after more than 30 years of observation among all kinds of sportsmen, hunters and gunners I am convinced that it is utterly futile and deadly dangerous to rely on humane high class sentiment to diminish the slaughter of wild things by game hogs and pot hunters in some respects the term game hog is a rude rough word but it is needed in the English language and it has come to stay it is a disagreeable term but it was brought into use to apply to a class of very disagreeable persons a game hog is a hunter of game who knows no such thing as sentiment or conscience in the killing of game so long as he keeps within the limit of the law for the scarcity of game or of its hard struggle for existence he will kill right up to the bag limit every day that he goes out provided it is possible to do so he uses the law as a salve for the spot where his conscience should be he will shoot with any machine gun or gun of big caliber in every way that the law allows and he knows no such thing as giving the game a square deal he brags of his bag of game and loves to be photographed with a wagon load of dead birds as a background he believes in automatic and pump guns spring shooting, longer open seasons and more game he is quite content to shoot half tame ducks in a club preserve as they fly between coop and pond whenever he secures an opportunity he will gladly sell his game whenever he can do so without being found out and sometimes when he is often a true sportsman drifts without realizing it there is some one way of the confirmed game hog but the moment he is made to realize his position he changes his course and his standing the game hog is impervious to argument you can shame a horse away from his oats more easily than you can shame him from doing what the law allows there are hundreds of thousands of gentlemen and gentle women who never once have come in touch with real cloven footed game hogs who do not understand the species at all and do not recognize its earmarks thousands of such persons will tell you in my opinion the best way to save the wildlife is to educate the people I have heard that many many times for right hearted people a little law is quite sufficient and the best people need none at all but the game hogs are different for them the strict letter of the law backed up by a strong armed squad is the only controlling influence that they recognize to them it is necessary to say you shall and you shall not only yesterday the latest game hog case was related to me by a game protector from Kansas into a certain county of southern Kansas from which the prairie chicken had been totally gone for a dozen years or more a pair of those birds entered settled down and nested their coming was to many habitants a joyous event now said the people we will care for these birds and they will multiply and presently the county will be restocked they have came two men from another county calling themselves sportsmen but not entitled to that name heard of these birds and resolved to get them they waited until the young were just leaving the nest and they went down and camped nearby on the first day they killed the two parent birds in half the flock of young birds and the next day they got all the rest but there is a sequel to this story one of those men was a dealer in guns and ammunition and when his customers heard what he had done he simply put him out of business by refusing to trade with him anymore he is now washing dirty dishes in a restaurant but at heart he is a game hog just the same near Bridgeport, Connecticut a gentleman of my acquaintance owns a finest state which is adorned with a trout stream and a super fine trout pond once he invited a businessman at Bridgeport to be his guest and fish for trout in his pond on that guest during a visit of three days the finest forms of hospitality were bestowed two weeks later my friend's game warden caught that guest early on a Sunday morning poaching on the trout pond and spoiled his carefully arranged getaway in his book Saddle and Camp in the Rockies Mr. Dylan Wallace tells a story of a man from New York who, in the mountains of Colorado deliberately corrupted his guides with money or other influences shot mountain sheep in mid-summer and got away with it in northern Minnesota, Mr. George E. Wood has been having a hand-to-hand fight with the worst community of game hogs and alien-born poachers of which I have heard there appears to be no game law that they do not systematically violate the killers seem determined to annihilate the last head of game in spite of fines and imprisonments the foreigners are absolutely uncontrollable the latest feature of the war is the discovery of a tannery in the woods where the hides of illegally slaughtered deer and moose are dressed apparently the only kind of a law that will save the game of northern Minnesota is one that will totally disarm the entire population in pennsylvania there exists an association which was formed for the express purpose of fighting the state game commission preventing the enactment of a hunter's license law and repealing the law against the killing of a female deer and hornless fawns the continued existence of that organization on that basis would be a standing disgrace to the fair name of pennsylvania I think, however, that that organization was founded on secret selfish purposes and that ere long the general body of members will awaken to a realizing sense of their position and range themselves in support of the excellent policies of the commission a pot hunter is a man or boy who kills game as a business for the money that can be derived from its sale or other use such men have the same feelings as butchers from their point of view they can see no reason why all the game in the world should not be killed and marketed like the father dealers they wish to get out of the wildlife all the money there is in it that is all left to themselves with open markets they would soon exterminate the land fauna of the habitable portions of the globe no one can educate such people for the gunners game hogs and pot hunters there is no check save specific laws that sternly and amply safeguard the rights of the wild creatures that cannot make laws for themselves nor can anyone educate the heartless woman of fashion who is determined to wear a grits as long as her money can buy them the best women of the world have already been educated on the bird millinery subject and they are already against the use of the gaudy badges of slaughter and extermination but in the great cities of the world there are thousands of women who are at heart as cruel as Salome herself and whose vicious taste can be curbed only by the strong hand of the law sentiment for wild birds is not in them because of the vicious and heartless elements among men and women we say give us far reaching iron bound laws for the protection of wildlife and plenty of courageous men to enforce them End of Chapter 25 Chapter 26 of our vanishing wildlife this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sarah Jennings Our vanishing wildlife by William T. Hornaday Chapter 26 The Army of the Defense It now seems that the friends of wildlife who themselves are not on the firing line should be afforded some definite information regarding the Army of the Defense and its strength and weakness It is an interesting subject but the limitations of space will not permit an extended treatment Over the world at large I think the act of destroyers outnumber the act of defenders of wildlife at least in the ratio of 500 to 1 and the money available to the destroyers is to the funds of the defenders as 500 is to 1 The average big game sportsman cheerfully expends from 500 to 1000 a hunting trip but resents the suggestion that he should subscribe from 50 to 100 dollars for wildlife preservation If he puts down 10 dollars he thinks he has done a big thing Worse than this I am forced to believe that at least 75% of the big game sportsmen of the world have never contributed 1 dollar in money or 1 hour of effort to that cause But there are exceptions and I can name at least 50 sportsmen who have subscribed 100 dollars each campaign funds and some who have given as high as 1000 dollars Once I sat down beside a financially rich slaughterer of game and asked him to subscribe with some of real money in behalf of a very important campaign I needed funds very much and I explained, exhorted and besought I pointed out his duty to give back something in return for all the game slaughter that he had enjoyed For 10 long minutes he stood fire without flinching and without once opening his lips to speak He made no answer no argument, no defense and finally he never gave up one cent Wherever the English language is spoken from Tasmania to Scotland and from Puerto Rico to the Philippines the spirit of wildlife protection exists Elsewhere there is much more to be said on this point To all cosmopolitan sportsmen the British blue book on game protection the annual reports of the two great protective societies of London and the annual progress report of the US Department of Agriculture are reassuring and comforting It is good to know that Uganda maintains a department of game protection AL Butler superintendent that so good a man as major J. Stevenson Hamilton is in control of protection in the trans-Val that even the native state of Kashmir officially recognizes the need to protect the remnant There are of course many parts of the world in which game laws and limits to slaughter are quite unknown all of which is entirely wrong and in need of quick correction No state or nation can be accounted wholly civilized that fails to recognize the necessity to protect wildlife I am tempted to make a list of the states and nations that were at latest advices destitute of game laws and game protectors but I fear to do injustice through lack of the latest information However the time has come to search out delinquents and hold up each one to a mirror that will reflect its shortcomings Naturally we are most interested in our own contingent of the Army of the Defense The United States Government Today the feeling in Congress toward the conservation of wildlife and forests is admirable Both houses are fully awake to the necessity of saving while there is yet something to be saved The people of the United States may be assured that the national government is sympathetic in the prosecution of such conservation measures as it might justly be expected to promote For example, during the past five years we have seen Congress take favorable action on the following important causes nearly every one of which cost money The saving of the American Bison and four national ranges The creation of 58 bird refuges The creation of five great game preserves The saving of the elk and Jackson Hole The protection of the fur seal The protection of the wildlife of Alaska There are many active friends of wildlife who confidently expect to see this fine list gloriously rounded out by the passage in 1913 of an ideal bill for the federal protection of all migratory birds To name the friends of wildlife in Congress would require the printing of a list of at least 200 names and a history of the rise and progress of wildlife conservation by the national government would fill a volume Such a volume would be highly desirable When the story of the national government's part in wildlife protection is finally written it will be found that while he was president Theodore Roosevelt made a record in that field that is indeed enough to make a rain illustrious. He aided every wildlife cause that lay within the bounds of possibility and he gave the vanishing birds and mammals the benefit of every doubt He helped to establish three national bison herds four national game preserves 53 federal bird refuges and to enact the Alaska game laws of 1902 and 1907 It was in 1904 that the national government elected to accept its share of the white man's burden and enter actively into the practical business of wildlife protection This special work originally undertaken and down to the present vigorously carried on by Dr. Theodore S. Palmer has considerably changed the working policy of the biological survey of the Department of Agriculture and greatly influenced game protection throughout the states The game protection work of that bureau is alone worth to the people of this country at least 20 times more per annum than the entire annual cost of the bureau Next to the splendid services of Dr. Palmer all over the United States one great value of the bureau is found in the fact and figure ammunition that it prepares and distributes for general use in assaults on the citadels of ignorance and greed The publications of the bureau are of great practical value to the people of the United States Dr. Palmer is a man of incalculable value to the cause of protection No call for advice is too small to receive his immediate attention No fight is too hot and no danger point too remote to keep him from the fray Wherever the army of destruction is making a particularly dangerous fight to return back the wheels of progress there will he be found As the warfare grows more intense Congress may find it necessary to enlarge the fighting force of the biological survey The work that has been done by the bureau in determining the economic value or lack of value of our most important species of insectivorous birds has been worth millions to the agricultural interests of the United States Through it we know where we stand The reasons why we need to strive for protection can be expressed in figures and percentages and it seems to me that they leave the American people no option but to protect State Game Commissions Each of our states and each province of Canada maintains either a state game commission of several persons one commissioner or a state game warden All such officers are officially charged with the duty of looking after the general welfare of the game and other wildlife of their respective states Theoretically one of the chief duties of a state game commission is to initiate new legislative bills that are necessary and advocate their translation into law The official standing of most game commissioners is such that they can successfully do this In 1909 Governor Hughes of New York went so far as to let it be known that he would sign no new game bill that did not meet the approval of state game commissioner James S. Whipple As a general working principal for Mr. Whipple, that was wrong because even a state game commissioner is not necessarily infallible or always on the right side of every wildlife question As a rule, state commissioners and state wardens are keenly alive to the needs of their states in new game protective legislation and a large percentage of the best existing laws are due to their initiative Often however, their usefulness is limited by the trammels of public office and there are times when such officers are aggressive without the risk of arousing hostile influences and handicapping their own departmental work For this reason it is often advisable that bills which propose great and drastic reforms and which are likely to become storm centres should originate outside the commissioner's office and be pushed by men who are perfectly free to abide the fortunes of open warfare It should be distinctly understood however that lobbying in behalf of wildlife measures is an important part of the legitimate duty of every state game commissioner and is a most honourable calling Of the many strong and aggressive state game commissions that I would like to mention in detail space permits the naming of only a very few by way of illustration New York Thanks to the great conservation governor of this state John A. Dix the year 1911 saw our forest fish and game business established on an ideal business basis Realising the folly of requiring a single man to manage those three great interests and render to each the attention that it deserves and requires By a well studied legislative act a state conservation commission was created consisting of three commissioners one for each of the three great natural departments These are salaried officers who devote their entire time to their work and are properly equipped with assistance The state force of Game Wardens now consists of 125 picked men each on a salary of $900 per year and through a rigid system of daily reports inaugurated by John B. Burnham the activities and results of each warden promptly become known in detail at headquarters Fortunately, New York contains a very large number of true sportsmen who are ever ready to come forward in support of every great measure for wildlife protection The spirit of real protection runs throughout the state and in time I predict that will result in a great recovery of the native game of the Commonwealth That will be after we have stopped all shooting of upland game birds and shorebirds for about eight years Even the pinnated grouse could be successfully introduced over one third of the state if the people would have it so It was our great body of conscientious sportsmen who made possible the Bain Blovelt law and the new codification of the game laws of the state Tennessee Clearly, honorable mention belongs to the unsalaried state commissioner of Tennessee Colonel J. H. Acklin Then whom, says Dr. Palmer, there is no more active and enthusiastic game protectionist in this country Whatever has been accomplished in that state is due to his activity and public spirit Colonel Acklin, who is now president of the National Association of Game Commissioners, is a prominent lawyer and enjoys the distinction of being the only commissioner in the country who not only serves without pay but also defrains a large part of the expenses of game protection out of his own pocket Surely the Commonwealth of Tennessee will not long permit this unsupported condition of such a game commissioner to endure that state has a wild fauna worth preserving for her sons and grandsons and it is inconceivable that the funds vitally necessary to this public service cannot be found Alabama I cite the case of Alabama because in view of its position in a group of states that until recently have cared little about game protection it may be regarded as an unusual case Commissioner John H. Wallace Jr. has evolved order out of chaos and something approaching a reign of law out of the absence of law Today the state of Alabama stands as an example of what can be accomplished by and through one clear-headed determined man who is right and knows that he is right New Jersey Alabama reminds one of New Jersey and of state game commissioner Ernest Napier I have seen him on the firing line and I know that his strong devotion to the interests of the wildlife of his state, his determination to protect it at all costs and his resistless confidence in asking for what is right have made him a power for good The state legislature believes in him and enacts the laws that he says are right and necessary He serves without salary to the state time, labor and money It is a pleasure to work with such a man In 1912 Commissioner Napier won a pitched battle with the makers of automatic and pump guns both shotguns and rifles and debarred all those weapons from use in hunting in New Jersey unless satisfactorily reduced to two shots Massachusetts The state of Massachusetts is fortunate in the possession of a very fine core of ornithologists, nature lovers sportsmen and leading citizens who on all questions affecting wildlife occupy high ground and are not afraid to maintain it It would be a pleasure to read an entire chapter on this subject The record of the Massachusetts army of the defense is both an example and an inspiration to the people of other states Not only is the cause of protection championed by the state game commission but it also receives constant and powerful support from the state board of agriculture and millions on its staff, Mr. E. H. Forbush as state ornithologist The bird protection publications of the board are of great economic value and they are also an everlasting credit to the state The very latest is a truly great wildlife protection volume of 607 pages by Mr. Forbush entitled Game Birds, Wild Fowl and Shorebirds It is a publication most damaging to the cause of the army of destruction and I heartily wish that a million copies might be printed and placed in the hands of lawmakers and protectors The fight last winter and spring for a no sale of game law was the Gettysburg for Massachusetts The voice of the people was heard in no uncertain tones and the destroyers were routed all along the line The leaders in that struggle on the protection side were E. H. Forbush William P. Wharton Dr. George W. Field Lyman E. Herd Ralph Holman Reverend William R. Lord and Salem D. Charles With such leaders and such supporters any wildlife cause can be won anywhere Pennsylvania The case of Pennsylvania is rather peculiar as yet there is no large and resistless organized body of real sportsmen to rally to the support of the State Game Commission in great causes as is the case in New York As a result with a paltry fund of only $20,000 for annual maintenance and much opposition from hunters and farmers the situation is far from satisfactory Fortunately Dr. Joseph Kelbfuss Secretary of the Commission and Chief Executive Officer is a man of indomitable courage and determination But for this state of mind he would air this have given up the fight for the Hunter's license law of $1 per year and is widely opposed by a very aggressive and noisy group of gunners who do not seem to know that they are grievously misled Fortunately Commissioner John M. Phillips of Pittsburgh is the ardent supporter of Dr. Kelbfuss and a vigorous fighter for justice to wildlife He devotes to the cause a great amount of time and effort and in addition to serving without salary he pays all his campaign expenses out of his own pocket for the admiration of his friends and the consciousness of having done his full duty toward the wildlife and the people of his native state the State Audubon Societies It is impossible to estimate the full value of the influence and work of the State Audubon Societies of the United States Thus far these societies exist in 39 states From the beginning their efforts have tended especially toward the preservation of the non-game birds that devorous birds have thus been specially championed Unfortunately, however, if that policy is pursued exclusively it leaves 154 very important species of game birds practically at the mercy of the Army of Destruction It would seem that the time has come when all Audubon Societies should take up as part of their work active cooperation in helping to save the game birds from extermination the national organizations of New York City On January 1st, 1895 the United States of America contained, so far as I am aware not one organization of national scope which was devoting any large amount of its resources and activities to the protection of wildlife At that time the former activities of the AOU Committee on Bird Protection had lapsed Today the City of New York contains six national organizations and it is now a great center of nationwide activities on behalf of preservation Furthermore, these activities are steadily growing and securing practical results The New York Zoological Society In 1895 there was born into the world a scientific organization having for its second declared object the preservation of our native animals It was the first scientific society or corporation ever formed so far as I am aware having a specifically declared object of that kind it owes its existence and its presence in the field of wildlife conservation to the initiative and persistence of Mr. Madison Grant and Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn For sixteen years these two officers have worked together virtually as one man it is not strange to find a sportsman like Mr. Grant promoting the wildlife cause but it is a fact well worthy of note that of all the zoologists of the world, Professor Osborn is the only one of real renown who has actively and vigorously engaged in this cause and taken a place in the front rank of the defenders Mr. Grant's influence on the protection cause has been strong and far reaching far more so than the majority of his own friends are aware he has promoted important protectionist causes from Alaska to Louisiana and Newfoundland and helped to win many important victories The Boon and Crockett Club This organization of big game sportsmen was founded in 1885 and is the oldest of its kind in the United States its members have always supported the cause of protection by law and by the making of game preserves In all this work Mr. George Bird Grinnell for twenty five years editor Forrest and Stream has been an important factor As stated elsewhere the club's written and unwritten code of ethics and big game hunting is very strict In course of time a committee was formed and it actively entered that field The National Association of Audubon Societies This organization was founded by William Dutcher in 1902 and in 1906 it was endowed to the extent of three hundred and twenty two thousand dollars by the request of Albert Wilcox subsequent endowments together with the annual contributions of members and friends now give the association an annual income of sixty thousand dollars It maintains eight widely separated field agents and lecturers and forty special game warrants of bird refuges It maintains Secretary T. Gilbert Pearson and a number of other good men constantly on the firing line and these forces have achieved many valuable results After years of stress and struggle it now seems almost certain that this organization will save the two white egrets producers of the white badge of cruelty to the bird fauna of the United States as in a similar manner it has saved the gulls turns and other seabirds of our lakes and coastlines This splendid organization is one of the monuments to William Dutcher More than two years ago he was stricken with paralysis and now sits in an invalid's chair at his home in Plainfield, New Jersey His mind is clear and his interest in wildlife protection is keen but he is unable to speak or to write While he was active he was one of the most resourceful and fearless champions of the cause of the vanishing birds To him the farmers of America owe ten times more than they will ever know and a thousand times more than they will ever repay either to him or to his cause The Kebfire Club of America Although founded in 1897 this organization did not, as an organization actively enter the field of protection until 1909 Since that time its work has covered a wide field and enlisted the activities of many of its members In order to provide a permanent fund for its work each year the club members pay special annual dues that are devoted solely to the wildlife cause The Committee on Game Protective Legislation and Preserves is a strong hard working body and it has rendered good surface in the lines of activity named in its title The American Game Protective and Propagation Association This is the youngest protective association of national scope having been organized in 1911 Its activities are directed by John B. Burnham for five years chief game protector of the state of New York and a man thoroughly conversant with the business of protection The organization is financed chiefly by means of a large annual fund contributed by several of the largest companies engaged in manufacturing firearms and ammunition The bill at the time has come when it is both wise and necessary to take practical measures to preserve the remnant of American game Already the activities of this organization cover a wide range and it has been particularly active in enlisting support for the weeks bill for the federal protection of migratory birds The Wildlife Protection Association came into existence in 1910 rather suddenly for the purpose of promoting the bane no sale of game bill and other measures It raised the fund that met the chief expenses of that campaign Since that time it has taken an important part in three other hotly contested campaigns in other states two of which were successful At the present moment and throughout the future these New York organizations need large sums of money with which to meet legitimate expenses of active campaigns for great measures They need some money from outside the state of New York Too much of the burden of national campaigning has been and is being left to be borne by the people of New York City This policy is growing monotonous There is every reason why Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Philadelphia Baltimore and Boston should each year turn $100,000 into the hands of these well equipped and well managed national organizations whose officers know how to get results all over our country Such organizations as these do not exist in other cities and this is very unfortunate New Orleans should be a center of protectionist activity for the south San Francisco for the pacific slope and Chicago for the middle west Will they not become so? Two independent workers At the western edge of the delta of the Mississippi there have arisen two men who loom up into prominence at an outpost of the army of defense which they themselves have established For what they have already done in the creation of wildflower preserves in Louisiana Edward A. McKillanee and Charles Willis Ward deserve the thanks of the American people at large An account of their splendid activities and the practical results already secured will be found in Chapter 38 on private game preserves and in the story of Marsh Island Already the home of these gentlemen Avery Island, Louisiana has become an important center of activity and wildlife protection End of Chapter 26