The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-06-10

~ yard and a farm to study the habits
of hawks a little and to learn to discriminate be-
tween the friend and the foe to his interests.
Let us take first the hawks ordinarily known as
hen hawks or chicken hawks. The hawks COM
monty called by these names rarely kill any chick
ems. But the trouble is that they get the blame
for the bad deeds of birds that sneak in" to the
poultry yard, do their killing and make their
escape while the big bird soaring in plain sight
against the heavens is charged with being the
culprit and receives the present of a charge of
shot If opportunity offers.
Take the red-tailed hawk for instance. He is
known to the scientist as Buteo borealis. In the
West the soaring chicken hawk" almost invari-
ably is the redtail. About once a year perhaps
the redtail will pick up a chicken, but for the rest
of the time he contents himself with a diet of
frogs, snakes, cTawfsh, insects, and small mann
mails. mostly of an injurious habit of life. The
number of field mice that a red-tailed hawk in the
course of a month will catch and devour is almost
incredible.
The good that this chicken hawk" does so far
outweighs the harm that it is a living shame 1t is
hunted so ceaselessly. If there ever was a crea-
ture in the world about whom there are a thou
sand mistaken thoughts that creature is the red
tailed hawk, the commonest of our chicken
hawks"
Ordinarily one thinks of birds of prey as being
exceedingly bold. Some of them are. But the
redtail is on pretty nearly every occasion an ar
rant coward. He is meekiy submissive to the as
VI IL hIuBDITu, anu IL II d pSTlcCl pOllTOUH
in the face of an attack from a crow, ! have seen
a crow buffet a red-tailed hawk for half an hour,
the hawk making absolutely no attempt to defend
himself and apparently being afraid to leave its
perch on a fencepost for fear that the crow would
get a greater advantage while in fight. AS a rule
the courageous hawks are the injurious hawks
There is another hawk similar in its habits to
the redtail. 1t is fairly common in many parts
of the United States and particularly so east of
the Mississippi river. 1t is called the red-shouL
dered hawk. and with the redtail it shares the
ignominy of being known wherever it appears as
a chicken hawk. Like the redtail it occasionally
kills a chicken. But it dearly loves rats, mice,
tree-girdling rabbits, frogs, and insects. The red
shouldered hawk scars, and scars, and scars, and
when it is seen against the sky the shotgun is
brought out and an attempt is made to kill the
friend that is looking for field mice. gophers or
something else, and with its thoughts far removed
from the chicken coop.
In a suburb of Washington, d. c., a friend of
mine has a country place where he raises large
numbers of chickens. This friend is a bird lover
and he has many species of American birds dwell.
ing at his doorstep. Back of his house he has
about twenty acres of woodland, and in these
woods lived two pairs of red-shouldered hawks.
My friend asked me If he should kill the hawks
in order to save his chickens. | told him to leave
the hawks alone and he did so for a long time.
Finally on one unfortunate day one of the red.
shouldered gentlemen descended on the poultry
yard and made off with a pullet. Death was de-
creed for the hawks and soon they were killed.
Within a few weeks the chickens began to dis
appear, or, at any rate, were found dead with their
lifeblood gone, and in some cases partly devoured.
The weasels were at work After the hawks were
killed the weasels multiplied in great numbers
and took their heavy toll of ROSTERS, hens and
little chicks of uncertain sex. My friend was sorry
that he had killed the hawks.
Then there is the sparrow hawk, known to the
scientist as Falco sparverius. This is the smallest
of the hawks of North America, and it has a range
all over the United States. The sparrow hawk
almost unquestionably is the most beautiful, as 1t
is the smallest, of our birds of prey. This little
hawk is unfortunately named. II was dubbed
sparrow hawk long before the day of the English
sparrows in this country. 1t was SO called be-
cause 1t occasionally captured and killed some of
cur native American sparrows, which. for the most
part, are benetcent birds. Lately the sparrow
aawk when it does any bird killing at all, turns its
attention largely to English sparrows. and there
by adds to the services which it otherwise rem
ders. The sparrow hawk lives mostly on small
injurious mammals insects. grasshoppers, cater
pillars, and the like. 1t should be said, how.
ever, that fully 25 per cent of the food of the spar
row hawk consists of field mice. house mice and
shrews.
A pair of sparrow hawks have a nest, or at any
rate a resting place, back of a big bronze eagle
which spreads its wings near the roof on the face
of the state. war, and navy building in Washing
ton directly across a narrow street from one end
of the White House. These two sparrow hawks
hunt the White House grounds daily. 1t may not
be the same pair, but two sparrow hawks have
been abiding back of the state department eagle
for a good many years.
When Theodore Roosevelt was president he
searched the grounds around the White House
every once In a while to discover what he could In
the way of wild life. Next to birds, ne was partic-
ularly interested in field mice. Occasionally he la