total was 9,103.

[Illustration: THE EASTERN RED SQUIRREL
A Great Destroyer of Birds]

THE RED SQUIRREL.--Once in a great while, conditions change in subtle
ways, wild creatures unexpectedly increase in number, and a community
awakens to the fact that some wild species has become a public nuisance.
In a small city park, even gray squirrels may breed and become so
fearfully numerous that, in their restless quest for food, they may
ravage the nests of the wild birds, kill and devour the young, and
become a pest. In the Zoological Park, in 1903, we found that the red
squirrels had increased to such a horde that they were driving out all
our nesting wild birds, driving out the gray squirrels, and making
themselves intolerably obnoxious. We shot sixty of them, and brought the
total down to a reasonable number. Wherever he is or whatever his
numerical strength, the red squirrel is a bad citizen, and, while we do
not by any means favor his extermination, he should resolutely be kept
within bounds by the rifle.

When a crow nested in our woods, near the Beaver Pond, we were greatly
pleased; but with the feeding of the first brood, the crows began to
carry off ducklings from the wild-fowl pond. After one crow had been
seen to seize and carry away _five_ young ducks in one forenoon, we
decided that the constitutional limit had been reached, for we did not
propose that all our young mallards should be swept into the awful
vortex of that crow nest. We took those young crows and reared them by
hand; but the old one had acquired a bad habit, and she persisted in
carrying off young ducks until we had to end her existence with a gun.
It was a painful operation, but there was no other way.

[Illustration: COOPER'S HAWK
A Species to be Destroyed]

BIRD-DESTROYING BIRDS.--There are several species of birds that may at
once be put under sentence of death for their destructiveness of useful
birds, without any extenuating circumstances worth mentioning. Four of
these are _Cooper's Hawk_, the _Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Pigeon Hawk_ and
_Duck Hawk_. Fortunately these species are not so numerous that we need
lose any sleep over them. Indeed, I think that today it would be a
mighty good collector who could find one specimen in seven days'
hunting. Like all other species, these, too, are being shot out of our
bird fauna.

Several species of bird-eating birds are trembling in the balance, and
under grave suspicion. Some of them are the _Great H