4H 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



several of these birds should be fastened 

 to the same perch or placed in the same 

 cage they will certainly fight each other, 

 and in all probability the conqueror 

 Avill eat his vanquished foe! Such an 

 event has actually occurred, the victrix 

 for it was a female killing and de- 

 vouring her intended spouse." A nat- 

 uralist, writing in the " Field " newspa- 

 per, gives a very interesting account of 

 the proceedings of " this handsome lit- 

 tle hawk," showing it to be a most vi- 

 cious wretch, and thus sums up its char- 

 acter : " The sparrow-hawk is, in my 

 opinion, the wildest, in some sense the 

 most intractable, the most ungrateful, 

 the most provoking and temper-trying 

 of all birds or beasts that ever were 

 taken under the care of man from the 

 beginning of the world." 



" Now," Dr. Coues might say to Mr. 

 Bergh, "if it be true, as Professor Agas- 

 siz always maintained, that animals are 

 but embodiments of Divine ideas, we 

 must consider this hawk, with its de- 

 structive weapons and murderous in- 

 stincts, as representing the Divine con- 

 ception of the sort of discipline to which 

 sparrows should be subjected. It is 

 divinely designed that their numbers 

 should be kept down, so that other 

 birds may have a chance. You thwart 

 the Divine intention by artificially fos- 

 tering them, and bringing about an un- 

 natural state of things that is injurious. 

 I would leave them to the Creator's 

 universal and fundamental law of natu- 

 ral selection, which is a safer guide 

 than blind, impulsive philanthropy, and 

 I merely included street boys, with 

 hawks, parasites, and a thousand other 

 destructive agencies as the means of 

 preserving the great balance among the 

 orders of life." 



The difficulty with Mr. Bergh is, 

 that he puts behind his philanthropy, 

 and as an impelling motive to it, an 

 erroneous view of nature. The doc- 

 trine of Divine designs is a dangerous 

 one to handle, because it cuts both 

 ways, and proves too much. If the be- 



neficent indications in nature are to 

 be accounted for on the hypothesis of 

 "intentions," so must the maleficent 

 indications, and how are we to escape 

 from the conclusion that cruelty also is 

 designed? If we should say that the 

 world was constructed and is adminis- 

 tered on the principle of the "preven- 

 tion of cruelty to animals," would it be 

 quite true? Are not the means and 

 appliances of destructive cruelty uni- 

 versal, and, if " intended " at all, were 

 they not intended for their cruel uses ? 

 It would require an extensive museum 

 to show us all the exquisite contrivances 

 with which living creatures have been 

 furnished to torment and kill each other. 

 They were not made each with a gland 

 to secrete chloroform that might be used 

 in producing painless death. But, in 

 place of any such kindly contrivance, 

 there are claws, talons, beaks, tusks, 

 fangs, hooks, saws, blades, stings, and 

 malignant poisons in infinite variety of 

 modification and adaptation for crush- 

 ing, rending, tearing, lacerating, and 

 torturing living and sensitive creatures; 

 and these grim implements are fur- 

 nished to all the grades of animate be- 

 ings on the earth, in the sea, and in the 

 air, from microscopic infusoria to colos- 

 sal beasts that range the forests. Nor 

 is this all : the creatures that are armed 

 with these weapons of destruction are 

 animated by the deadliest instincts to 

 use them ; in fact, they are driven to it 

 by the very law of self-preservation. 

 " Kill, that you may live," is the man- 

 date of universal necessity. 



But the roots of all this pitiless car- 

 nage strike still deeper into the meth- 

 od of nature. Life is wasted through 

 these sanguinary devices with an infi- 

 nite prodigality. Sensitive organisms 

 to be sacrificed by suffering seem to 

 be the cheapest things in the universe. 

 The amount of inanimate matter is lim- 

 ited; but creatures formed out of it, 

 and capable of pain, are boundlessly un- 

 limited. Space restricts the material, 

 but living organisms are multiplied for 



