NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



around him in a most brutal and unreasoning manner. 

 Knowing no better, he destroys friend and foe alike. 



The real lords and masters of the world are the 

 insects. With his many inventions, man wages a 

 constant warfare upon the insect army which is seek- 

 ing to drive him from the face of the earth. The 

 numerous sub-human allies which the Creator has 

 provided to aid him in his struggle for life are doing 

 most of the fighting. Man's puny attacks do about 

 as much damage to the insect enemy as shooting into 

 a flight of migratory locusts with a rifle. 



Insects breed with astounding rapidity, and when 

 from any cause their natural enemies are diminished 

 in numbers, they immediately increase and become a 

 plague. 



Over a million species of insects are already known, 

 and new kinds are being discovered every day. These 

 vast, uncountable hordes live upon vegetable and animal 

 life. If we had the power to exterminate all the 

 natural enemies of insects, and exercised that power 

 to the full, then, within a period of five years, the 

 insects would have swept the entire world bare of 

 vegetable life — yes, as bare as the Sahara Desert. 

 Every living creature is dependent either directly or 

 indirectly on plant life, and the world would, without 

 it, become a barren, uninhabitable waste. Man is 

 indeed a provokingly unreasoning animal, for he, as a 

 general rule, does not avail himself as he should of 

 the knowledge of his men of science. To bring 

 about most of the reforms for the protection and general 

 betterment of the individual and the race, it is usually 



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