212 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
paying us in far greater measure at another, and, on 
the whole, so greatly to our advantage that nothing 
should be allowed to hinder its due performance. 
And we must not fall into the common error of 
assuming that, by the exercise of a little skill and a 
little discrimination, we can destroy the evil and 
allow the good to live, thus gaining for ourselves a 
better position without at the same time incurring 
its corresponding disadvantages. Why, the good for 
the most part prey upon the evil, and could not exist 
without them. In the ideal world of a farmer’s 
dreams, no doubt, every seed put into the ground 
would yield its full return, untaxed by the depreda- 
tions of the many creatures which now assert their 
claim to a share of human produce, and all the 
various animals which might in any way interfere 
with his arrangements would be ruthlessly expunged 
from the registers of Nature. But this can never be. 
We cannot destroy the present balance of Nature and 
create in its place a new, and it is unwise, and more 
than unwise, to interfere unnecessarily and in any 
great degree with that which already exists. 
Nature is a willing servant, but a bad slave. She 
will work for us, and work her hardest; but only 
upon her own terms. To coercion of any kind she 
will not submit, and if we insist upon forcibly altering 
her arrangements in one way, she is sure, sooner or 
later, to take her revenge in another. And she has 
so interwoven the relationships of her numberless 
servants with one another, so connected each and all 
alike with bonds invisible yet strangely strong, that 
