2 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
occupations hold with regard to him a perfectly neutral 
position. 
But, with his first step in the long ascent of intel- 
lectual advance, his relations with animals undergo a 
total change. He tills the ground, and in so doing 
dispossesses from their natural dwelling-places a num- 
ber of creatures with which previously he never inter- 
fered. He takes various plants into cultivation, and 
ipso facto converts from neutrals into enemies the 
beings which find in those plants their food. He 
captures certain animals upon whose flesh he wishes 
to feed, and places them under domestication, in 
order that they may be always ready to his hand, 
without the necessity for constantly undertaking the 
toils of a long and arduous chase; and thus he incurs 
the direct enmity of the parasites by which those ani- 
mals are infested. He cuts down trees, and uses the 
wood for the construction of his dwellings, only to 
find that that wood is the chosen home of multitudes 
of insects, which bore into its very heart, and in 
course of time reduce it to the mere skeleton of its 
former self. He stores skins and fleeces to serve 
him for raiment, and finds that they, too, are the 
appointed food of certain creatures, which now, in 
carrying out a mission formerly beneficial, are in- 
juring him in place of rendering assistance. And 
so, by his own act, and in a hundred different ways, 
man upsets the working of the natural laws, and at 
once and for ever entirely alters his position with 
regard to a large and important section of his fellow- 
beings. 
