38 Wild Bird Guests 



To be sure some kinds of birds become very much 

 reduced in numbers owing to severe storms, but 

 these very disastrous storms do not occur every 

 year and in the meantime the natural increase 

 makes up the losses. And among the birds and 

 their natural enemies, nature preserves so nice 

 a balance, that as a rule no one species gets very 

 much ahead of another until civilized man steps 

 in. Civilized man has many needs and many 

 desires and displays great ingenuity in supply- 

 ing the needs and gratifying the desires. When 

 these needs or desires involve the destruction of 

 animal life, the fine balance which would other- 

 wise be preserved by nature is apt to be de- 

 stroyed, and the next chapter will tell some of the 

 ways by which civilized man becomes directly 

 and indirectly, perhaps the most dangerous of 

 all bird enemies. 



