cerning birds, mammals, insects and forest fires, and from the answers received there has been compiled a large amount of valuable and instructive data, which will appear in future public documents. During the past twelve months we have received at this office eighty-seven species of birds, five mammals and seventy-five species of insects sent for identification.

The prevalence of the army worm and basket, or bag worm. throughout the Commonwealth resulted in our receiving, from farmers and fruit growers last summer, thousands of specimens of these troublesome pests.

FIELD WORK.

Special investigations have been made respecting the yellowbellied woodpecker and other native birds; also, of the army worm. Of birds and mammals, which are commonly claimed to be detrimental, about 800 stomachs have been collected and preserved for future investigations.

During the past year the Zoologist visited about thirty farmers' institutes, Pomona and subordinate grange meetings, and lectured on various topics concerning the work of this division, and the Department.

INSUFFICIENT BULLETINS.

In view of the fact that the heads of the several executive departments and the members of the General Assembly receive, by law, no copies of the bulletins of this Department, which are in great demand, I would recommend that an amendment be made to the act providing for their publication, so that the other officials referred to shall receive a portion of these documents for distribution to their constituents.

THE NECESSITY FOR MORE POPULAR NATURAL HISTORY

PUBLICATIONS.

The great increase in popular interest concerning common insects, birds, mammals, fishes and botanical and forestry subjects has be come manifest in numerous ways.

Our efficient State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dr. N. C. Schaeffer, and his intelligent co-workers in many portions of the State, have done much to create this growing sentiment which certainly deserves encouragement from our legislators and others in high authority.

The officials of this Department, during the last two years, have been in receipt of fully 5,000 requests for reports on birds, insects, mammals, etc., which they were unable to supply, because no adequate means had been made for the publication of these documents. The widespread ignorance regarding many of our common birds. mammals, etc., can be best corrected by the publication of books, by our State, which show the true economic status of these creatures. Give the school boy a document, written in language which he can understand, and more will be done toward creating sentiment in favor of our animal friends than almost any protective laws which can be enacted.

Again, it is important for the masses to be familiar with wild animals which are detrimental, and these documents should deal with them also.

Pennsylvania is one of the leading states in the Union in the production of poultry. The value of poultry of all kinds and of the eggs produced is placed, for this year, at $22,000,000. Of this immense sum, it is claimed from reports received by this Department from farmers and poultry raisers throughout the State, that the annual loss of domestic fowls from the visits of predatory animals, (birds and quadrupeds) amounts to not less than $250,000.

INSECT RAVAGES.

The plum crop in many regions of Pennsylvania is almost a total failure because of the ravages of the curculio and the fungus known as black knot. Yet, if orchardists would heed advice and follow the recommendations of our scientific men who give special attention to the life history of insects, fungi and birds, plum culture could, no doubt, be conducted with much greater satisfaction and profit.

During recent years there has been a very great increase both in number and virulence of the parasitic fungi and insect pests with which the farmer and horticulturist has to contend. Besides these enemies, the cultivator of the soil has to combat certain species of birds and mammals which annually do much damage to his cultivated crops. The destruction of forests, both by lumbermen and devastating forest fires-especially the latter-has caused many insects to abandon their habitations in the forests and take up their abodes in the cultivated lands. Eminent entomological authorities assure us that at least one-tenth of all the cultivated crops of this country are annually destroyed by insects, and that the aggregate amount of damage done is upwards of $300,000,000 every year in the United States. Of this immense sum it is a very conservative estimate to state that Pennsylvania's share through insect ravages alone is about $5,000,000 annually.

Some three years ago the Pine Bark beetle committed depreda tions in the pine forests of southwestern Pennsylvania and in West Virginia amounting to fully $1,000,000, and during the present year, according to the estimates of our correspondents, the army worm damaged crops, chiefly cereals, to the extent of at least $300,000. In 1895, "rose bugs" and English sparrows caused, according to the testimony of our Erie county correspondents, fully $50,000 loss to vineyards in the famous Erie grape belt.

In North Carolina, the insect hosts annually, it is said, destroy over one and one-half million dollars worth of agricultural products. In 1893, the loss from granary insects to the corn crop alone in the State of Alabama was claimed to be $1,671,882, and in the Lone Star State grain weevils, according to a well-known writer, cause an annual loss in stored cereals of over $1,000,000. In 1874, the western states were visited by grasshoppers which played such havoc with the crops that their depredations amounted to $45,000,000. The chinch bugs were so numerous in Illinois in 1864 that they cost the people of that state over $73,000,000, and in Missouri in 1874 the same voracious pests devoured agricultural products to the amount of $19,000,000. In the cotton raising states the annual loss through the cottom worm from 1864 to 1880 was estimated at about $15. 000,000. Dr. Packard states that

"Each species of plant on an average supports three to four species of insects, and numerous plants, particularly those in general cultivation, afford subsistence to many more. Many species, which now attack garden vegetables or fruit or vines, once lived in the forest on entirely different vegetable life. There are, it is said, not less than seventy-five kinds of injurious insects inhabiting the apple orchard. Before the apple and other fruit trees were introduced to America, many of these insect enemies lived on such forest trees as the oak, elm, wild cherry, maple, ash and willow. Forest trees are," as Dr. Packard states. "particularly liable to depredations of insects, certain species of which attack the roots, others the bark, some the wood, many the leaves and

a few the fruit and nuts. The oak harbors between 500 and 600 kinds of insects; the hickories afford maintenance to 140 recorded species, the birch to over 100 species, the maple 85, the poplar 72, while the pine yields nourishment to over 100 different kinds."

With the view of benefiting, especially the agricultural and horticultural interests, I would respectfully recommend that at the next session of our Legislature provision be made for the publication of popular works on such common insects, birds and mammals as are known to be beneficial or harmful to the agricultural, horticultural, poultry and game interests of this State, and further that such works be distributed by the executive departments and the members of the General Assembly.

The Zoologist has prepared for the annual report of this Department for 1896 the following papers:

1. "Fish-Eating Birds and Mammals."

This paper deals briefly with the various species of birds and quadrupeds which our investigations show subsist on fish. The damage, however, which is done by this class of animals is not serious. The kingfisher and mink are about the only members of this group whose depredations to the finny inhabitants of our waters are worthy of particular notice.

2. "Forest Fires and Game."

This article contains a considerable amount of data from lumbermen of the State which is of particular value, as it shows the character and extent of loss to furred and feathered animal life, which was occasioned by the ruinous forest fires of May and June of last

year.

The material in this paper should certainly cause every lover of field sports, as well as naturalists and others who desire to protect our animal friends, to make the most earnest efforts to secure legislation that will enable the proper authorities to suppress, if possible, these forest fires which occur almost every spring and fall.

The assertion that steam locomotives are the chief cause of forest fires in this State is not, according to my observation, correct, nor is the claim proven by statistics of this Department.

My official duties are such that I have occasion to travel at least nine months of the year through Pennsylvania. Much of this time is spent in the mountains and lumbering operations where forest fires are of common occurrence. While it is, of course, true that sparks from engines of steam cars sometimes start serious conflagrations, careful investigations during the past three years show that fires which originate through such causes are exceptional.

It is also a fact that our railroad companies not only use the most improved spark arresters for their engines, but they likewise give

4--7--96

particular instructions to section bosses and track walkers in their employ to adopt promptly such means as may be necessary to stop any and all fires which occur along the lines of their respective systems. Through my own personal observation and from the statements of numerous close observing and reliable gentlemen who have devoted much attention to the cause and effect of forest fires it has been found, except in isolated cases, that many of the ruinous forest fires which have in recent years been started by steam engines, originated not from the puffing and ponderous locomotives of the wellequipped and admirably conducted steam railways of our Commonwealth, but from the little (and in many cases defective) "dinkey" engines, such as are in use on many lumbering operations.

Another and very fruitful cause of forest fires is the custom as practiced in numerous regions of setting fire in the early spring to undergrowth, dry fallen leaves and dead wood, so that grazing and pasture grounds will be furnished for cattle and sheep. The people who do this work know it is contrary to law, but they nevertheless follow it up year after year. Instances are known where, in order to escape detection, men have taken lighted candles and placed them under piles of leaves and other combustible materials. These candles in a few hours would burn out and start fires when the men who had arranged these contrivances would be many miles from the place.

Old huckleberry patches are often fired, so a new crop of vigorous bushes will come up the following spring. Thus, for the sake of a few bushels of berries, men will start fires that destroy many thousands of dollars worth of property and much wild animal life.

Deer hunters oftentimes, in order to clear up underbrush so they can get better shots at deer, will burn extensive tracks of land.

3. "The Fallacy of Unwise Bounty Laws."

This paper gives, in brief, a review of some of the results of the bounty or "scalp" acts, which in past years have been in force in Pennsylvania. It is shown that the different counties of the Commonwealth, under the act of 1885, paid in less than two years about ninety thousand dollars ($90,000) for the heads of hawks and owls. The decapitated bodies of 500 of these birds, on which premiums had been paid, were obtained, identified and examined and only sixtynine, or a little less than one-seventh, were detrimental, viz: Cooper's hawk, 25; sharp-shinned hawk, 16; great horned owl, 13; barred owl, 10; duck hawk, 2; pigeon hawk, 2, and goshawk, 1. The remainder were species which post-mortem examinations clear'y demonstrated were of incalculable value, as they subsisted chiefly on destructive field or meadow mice and different kinds of injurious insects.