DESTRUCTION OF INSECTS. 139 
the larvee of the May fly, which is itself very destructive to the 
spawn of the salmon, and hence, by a sort of house-that-Jack- 
built, the destruction of the mosquito, that feeds the trout that 
preys on the May fly that destroys the eggs that hatch the sal- 
mon that pampers the epicure, may occasion a scarcity of this 
latter fish in waters where he would otherwise be abundant. 
Thus all nature is linked together by invisible bonds, and every 
organic creature, however low, however feeble, however de- 
pendent, is necessary to the well-being of some other among the 
myriad forms of life with which the Creator has peopled the 
earth. 
I have said that man has promoted the increase of the insect 
and the worm, by destroying the bird and the fish which feed 
upon them. Many insects, in the four different stages of their 
growth, inhabit in succession the earth, the water, and the air. 
In each of these elements they have their special enemies, and, 
deep and dark as are the minute recesses in which they hide 
themselves, they are pursued to the remotest, obscurest corners 
by the executioners that nature has appointed to punish their 
delinquencies, and furnished with cunning contrivances for fer- 
reting out the offenders and dragging them into the light of day. 
One tribe of birds, the woodpeckers, seems to depend for sub- 
sistence almost wholly on those insects which breed in dead or 
dying trees, and it is, perhaps, needless to say that the injury 
these birds do the forest is imaginary. They do not cut holes 
in the trunk of the tree to prepare a lodgment for a future 
colony of boring larvee, but to extract the worm which has 
already begun his mining labors. Hence these birds are not 
found where the forester removes trees as fast as they become 
fit habitations for such insects. In clearing new lands in the 
but many young cattle, such as lambs and calves, have been worried out of 
their lives by them. All the people of Lapland declare that young birds are 
killed by them, and this is not improbable, for birds are scarce after seasons 
when the midge, the gnat, and the mosquito are numerous.”— Om Uppodling- 
ari Lappmarken, p. 50. 
Petrus Lestadius makes similar statements in his Journal for forsta dret, 
p. 285. 
