NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



loss during the operation of the Act. The destruction 

 of so great a number of enemies of rats and mice 

 enabled the latter to multiply until, by slow degrees, 

 the balance of Nature was restored. 



The ultimate loss to the State by this deplorable 

 interference with the workings of Nature must have 

 resulted in the loss of at least 50,000,000 dollars. 

 The destruction of so-called game birds to-day is a 

 practice which brings financial loss on a very large 

 scale. The partridge is an example. At intervals 

 during the game season, which is during the winter 

 months in South Africa, I examined the contents of a 

 large number of crops, and they consisted of termites, 

 beetles, grasshoppers, locusts, slugs, snails, larvae of 

 a wide assortment of insects ; nodules from the roots 

 of water grasses ; seeds, and the fleshy roots of weeds, 

 and those of a few small veld plants. 



The contents of stomachs which I examined at 

 intervals during the summer months consisted of the 

 same miscellaneous collection, with the addition of a 

 lar^e number of caterpillars, eggs of locusts, winged 

 termites, grass and weed seeds. 



" The summer came, and all the birds were dead ; 

 The days were like hot coals ; the very ground 

 Was burned to ashes ; and in the orchards fed 



Myriads of caterpillars, and around 

 The cultivated fields and garden beds 



Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found 

 No foe to check their march till they had made 

 The land a desert without leaf or shade." 



Longfellow. 



84 



