The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1916-01-20
CONSERVATION IN MARYLAND

GnNb
WHY 1T PAYS TO PRoNECT BIRDS.
This is the third of series of eight
articles on the need of conservation
in Maryland, published under the
auspices of the MARYLAND Wild Life
Protective Association at this time
with view of having some OF the
defects remedied by the passage of
adequate conservation laws at the
present session of the State Legis-
lature.
In Washington there is a mausoleum
wherein lie unknown to nearly every
passer-by 100000 bodies or parts of
them. Nothing in the exterior of this
bright and clearly structure at 1858 b
street S. W. goes TO suggest the char
acter of its interesting and as we shall
come to see, immensely important in
terror. Entering its portals one finds
himself not in a morgue or museum but
in the corridors of modern busy office
building, and he must know his bust
ness if, while reading on door panels
the names of departments and officials.
he is to discover the structures great
secret. Not morgue, did l say, yet it
is, for the dead fragments are stomach's
of birds, and they do await recognition
by those to whom they proved friends,
as the evidence they died holding dem
onstrates beyond peradventure. Here
sits line of trained analysts peering
through six and eight-power micro
J scopes into the foot balls before them
separating, classifying, tabulating, re-
porting. 1t is the Bureau of Biological
Survey in the Uuited States Depart
ment of Agriculture, which for 80 wears.
though most actively for the latter
half of that period, has been determi-
ming the food habits, the distribution
and migration of North American birds,
publishing its findings as the basis for
intelligent legislation, and reporting
from year to year the progress of en-
actments, protective or destructive.
1t is this great Bureau good fortune
and ours to have found the reason for
saving wild life which gets hearing
when humanitarian considerations fail.
1t is demonstrating that birds pay in
dollars and cents. We have been think
ing of II EN- generally as either pleasant
/ to see and hear, or good to eat. These
are but happy accidents. If indeed to
enrich our aesthetic nature and stock
the larder were their only service they
would deserve our full protection But
! their real function in nature is to keep
in check the hordes of insects, rodents
and weeds, to act as scavengers and so
to render the earth habitable by US. In
truth. Henry W. Henshaw, Chief of
the Biological Survey, gives it as his
conclusion that without insectivorous
birds lit is more than likely-nav, it is
almost certain-that within a limited
time not only would successful agricul-
! ture become impossible, but the de-
struction of the greater part of yege-
tatlon would follow" NAT Geog.
Mag. 1908, p. 89). Missing the point
of their existence, we have allowed
/ ignorance and greed to visit them with
stupid and relentless persecution.
To test the effect of birds at work let
US take what is regarded popularity as
hard case-that of hawks and owls,
against which the hand of man is raised
DR.. A. K. Fisher has written a..mono-
graph of 200 pages giving the detailed
analysis of $500 stomachs of these birds
taken at all seasons and from every
section. The result is that poultry is
found to be practically confined to out
of 70 species and sub-species. OF these
six, three are so extremely rare in agri-
cultural America as to be negligible.
This leaves the Sharp-shinned hawk,
Cooper's hawk and great horned owl
only to be shot. In 22l2 stomachs of
other 67, poultry and game birds are
found in % per cent, other birds in II
per cent, contained mice and other
noxious mammals, and q per cent in
sects.
Oddly and cruelty enough the two
species commonly called Hen and
Chicken Hawks ii. e., Red-shouldered
and Red-tailed Hawks) prove to be
about as innocent as Fido and immense
ly more useful. OF 206 stomachs of
the former. poultry was found in three,
fish in three, birds in IL, while the
other 188 were filled with mice and
other mammals, reptiles, batrachians,
insects, spiders, crawfish, earthworms
and offal.
Sparrow hawks, like many others,
prefer grasshoppers. In 800 stomachs
not trace of poultry was found, though
2l5 had eaten insects and SO had captur-
ed mice. 1t is estimated that an ordi-
nary flock Of Swainson's hawks con-
sumo 1000, 900 grasshoppers a month
Owls at night are even more effec-
tive, for more rodents are abroad then.
| In 1247 barn-owl pellets collected in
tho tomorc of tho Cro;tbcop;oo p,,;IJ;po,