OF VICTORIA. 245 



the day the ants occupied these in overwhelming^ numbers, 

 and drove the birds away, protecting the insects and 

 cleaning the foliage. 



" The complex relation seems to be in the following 

 form : — 



" 1. — The scale or other insects are used indirectly to 

 attract the ants by their sweet secretions. 



"2. — The ants, like a standing army, protect the foliage 

 against the attacks of leaf-eatinor animals. 



" 3. — The abundance of honey-eating birds is necessary 

 to keep the scale or other insects within reasonable bounds. 



" 4. — The reduction of these birds by man tends to favour 

 the increase of the scale insects and their produce. 



" 5. — The scale and other insects now get the upper hand, 

 and the ants, protecting the insects, also favour their 

 increase. 



" 6. — The consequence is superabundance of honey-dew, 

 and this is taken advantage of by the germs of the fungus to 

 spread and multiply. 



*' Thus the destruction of the honey-eating birds has 

 brought about an increase of the honey-dew and of the 

 ' sooty mould ' which lives upon it^ so that it is not only 

 insectivorous birds which ought to be protected for the 

 benefit of the grower." 



The conclusion of the whole matter appears to me to be 

 that it is better to individually battle in the gardens 

 rather than collectively to go abroad to war. Whatever 

 means we use at home are necessary — in the first place to 

 make them fear you, through simple fright, or in the 

 second place to cause them to dread you by killing many of 

 their number. Various means could be adopted, as with the 

 Crow. 



The Psittaci, so named by Ritgen in 1826 and generally 



