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 fifty 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 229-30.)

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 COOPER’S HAWK (Accipiter cooperi) and the SHARP-SHINNED HAWK (A. velox).  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 song-birds, and members of the grouse family.  In 159 stomachs of sharp-shinned hawks, 99 contained song-birds and woodpeckers.  In 133 stomachs of Cooper’s hawks, 34 contained poultry or game birds, and 52 contained other birds.  The game birds included 8 quail, 1 ruffed grouse and 5 pigeons.

THE WOODPECKERS.[I]—­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 DOWNY WOODPECKER, (Dryobates pubescens) is accorded first rank.  It is one of the smallest species.  The contents of 140 stomachs consisted of 74 per cent insects, 25 per cent vegetable matter and 1 per cent sand.  The insects were ants, beetles, bugs, flies, caterpillars, grasshoppers and a few spiders.

[Footnote I:  The reader is advised to consult Prof.  F.E.L.  Beale’s admirable report on “The Food of Woodpeckers,” Bulletin No. 7, U.S.  Department of Agriculture.]

THE HAIRY WOODPECKER, (Dryobates villosus), a very close relation of the preceding species, is also small, and his food supply is as follows:  insects, 68 per cent, vegetable matter 31, mineral 1.

THE GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER, (Colaptes auratus), is the largest and handsomest of all the woodpeckers that we really see in evidence.  The Pileated 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 per cent animal matter (three-fourths of which is ants), 39 per cent is vegetable matter, and 5 per cent mineral matter.