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 Horned Owl, Screech Owl, Butcher Bird_ or _Great Northern Shrike_. The only circumstance that saves these birds from instant condemnation is the delightful amount of rats, mice, moles, gophers and noxious insects that they annually consume. In view of the awful destructiveness of the accursed bubonic-plague-carrying rat, we are impelled to think long before placing in our killing list even the great horned owl, who really does levy a heavy tax on our upland game birds. As to the butcher bird, we feel that we ought to kill him, but in view of his record on wild mice and rats, we hesitate, and finally decline.