214 THE BIRD 



the insects have avenged the bird. It has become necessary to recall 

 in all haste the banished. In the island of Bourbon, for example, a 

 price was set on each martin's head; they disappeared, and then the 

 grasshoppers took possession of the island, devouring, extinguishing, 

 burning up with harsh acridity aU that they did not devour. The 

 same thing has occurred in North America with the starling, the pro- 

 tector of the maize. The sparrow even, which attacks the grain, but 

 also defends it — the thieving, pilfering sparrow, loaded with so many 

 insults, and stricken with so many maledictions — it has been seen 

 that without him Hungary would perish; that he alone could wage 

 the mighty war against the cockchafers and the myriad winged foes 

 which reign in the low-lying lands : his banishment has been revoked, 

 and the courageous militia hastily recalled which, if not strictly dis- 

 ciplined, are not the less the salvation of the country. 



No long time ago, near Rouen, and in the valley of Monville, the 

 crows had for a considerable period been proscribed. The cockchafers, 

 accordingly, profited to such an extent — their larvje, multipled a.d 

 infinitum, pushed so far their subterranean works — that an entire 

 meadow was pointed out to me as completely withered on the surface ; 

 every root of grass or herb was eaten up ; and all the turf, easily 

 detached, could be rolled back on itself just as one raises a 

 carpet. 



All toil, all appeals of man to nature, supposes the intelligence of 

 the natural order. Such is the order, and such the law : Life has 

 around it and within it its enemy — most frequently as its guest — tlie 

 parasite which undermines and cankers it. 



Inert and defenceless life, especially vegetable, deprived of loco- 

 motion, would succumb to it but for the stronger support of the inde- 

 fatigable enemy of the parasite, the merciless pursuer, the winged 

 conqueror of the monsters. 



The war rages without under the Tropics, where they surge up on 

 aU sides. Within in our climates, where everything is hidden, more 

 profound, and more mysterious. 



In the exuberant fecundity of the Torrid Zone, the insects, those 



