Show CERTAIN BIRDS NOT INJURIOUS fallacies boma of the feathered tribe Ull dr C hart iam chief of the division of ornithology of the agricultural department has been for years engaged in examining and analyzing the contents of the stomachs of birds showing in several notable instances that popular ideas regarding the injurious effects of certain birds were wholly mistaken and that they have been the victims of an unjust persecution this has been found to be especially the case with hawks and owls for the slaughter of which many states give bounties pennsylvania in two years gave over in hawk and owl bounties examinations ami nations of the stomachs of these birds prove conclusively that 05 per cent of their food was field mice grasshoppers crickets etc were infinitely more injurious to farm crops than they the crow also is not so black as he has been painted by the farmers the charges against alic crow were that lie ale corn and destroyed the eggs of poultry and wild birds examinations of their stomachs showed they cat noxious insects and other animals and that although per cent of their food is corn it is mostly waste corn picked up in the fall and winter they also eat ants beetles caterpillars bugs flies etc which do much damage in alie case of the kingbird king bird killed by the farmer under the impression eliat it eats bees was found that he ate only drones and robber flies which themselves feed on bees and which destroy more bees in cne day than the kingbird king bird does in a year the kingbird king bird therefore is to be encouraged rather than slaughtered the cuckoos also aia found to be very useful birds in aliis country doing much good in the destruction of insects |