120 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



appeared hair-brained and impossible are towering 

 over him, live and threatening facts, rendering his 

 condition positively and compulsorily heroic. 



In short, and in a time-worn phrase, man has 

 upset the balance of Nature. And all his efforts 

 to restore this balance only bring him fresh 

 problems to solve, and lead him deeper and deeper 

 into the labyrinthine ways of cause and effect and 

 the maze-like mysteries of the unity of all things. 

 By, for instance, introducing rabbits where by 

 rights there was no provision for rabbits, or by 

 planting the Water - Hyacinthe in rivers not 

 organized for its right reception, or by extermin- 

 ating hawks and stoats where there was good and 

 useful room for these, he brings about his ears 

 undreamed of and unpleasant compHcations the 

 fighting of which keeps him anxiously, nervously 

 alert. Already, too, there are whispers of what 

 untoward effect wireless telegraphy may have 

 upon the weather ; and it seems not unreasonable 

 to wonder what changes may not be gradually 

 wrought in the habits of birds and beasts when 

 man comes to fly as easily as he walks. 



But perhaps it is his improvidence which costs 

 him the most dear. Incalculable trouble is saved 

 by economy ; but economy bespeaks a careful 



