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identifier/filename
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371-00052
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title
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Letter, Myron H. Swenk to C. W. Pugsley, 1918, Oct. 1
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description
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Typewritten letter, 3 pages, from Myron H. Swenk to C.W. Pugsley, "I am in receipt of your letter of September…"
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Transcription
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for this year is only a little over 10% and of this only about half is grasshoppers, yet during the summer and fall these grouse must consume a large number of grasshoppers for frequently 20 to 30 or more may be found in the stomach of an individual bird. Various beetles, including the Colorado potato beetle, make up nearly 3% of the insect food, the other food consisting of various kinds of bugs, cutworms, slugs, leaf-hoppers, weevils, and ants. Vegetable matter makes up 90% of the food of the year, of which about 31% is leaves, buds and flowers, 20% waste grain, 7% weed seeds, and the rest wild fruit and other vegetable matter. It appeals to me that it would be the course of wisdom to extend full protection to the common prairie chicken. This protection might be extended to the grouse also, or a two months open season on grouse might continue. If such season continued it should be for the months of October and November, so as to get the benefit of this bird's grasshopper eating propensities during the month of September. Such protection, aside from the undesirability of allowing the destruction of so economically valuable a bird as the prairie chicken, would be entirely wise from the standpoint of game preservation. The prairie chickens are becoming fewer in number and more restricted in range each year, and if the present open season is continued I cannot see that it will fail to eventually result in the complete extermination of the bird in this state. On the other hand, full protection for an indefinite, or even over a limited period, would enable the birds to recruit their numbers and unremittingly attack the egg-laying grasshoppers during the late summer and fall. Whenever a grasshopper destroyed before it can lay its eggs means that at least 50 fewer grasshopper for next spring. Thanking your for your interest in this matter, which I believe is one important enough to challenge our serious attention, I am, Yours very truyly, MHS:G
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date
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10/1/1918
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source/RG#/MS#
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MS 0371
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isPartOf/Collection
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Nebraska Ornithologists' Union (NOU), Records
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rights
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For copyright information, please contact the repository.
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publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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language
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English
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