18 Mary Somerville. 



buried no one knew when. Thus experience is 

 sometimes the antecedent of science, for it was little 

 suspected at that time that by shutting out the air 

 the invisible organic world was excluded the cause 

 of all fermentation and decay. 



I never cared for dolls, and had no one to play 

 with me. I amused myself in the garden, which 

 was much frequented by birds. I knew most of 

 them, their flight and their habits. The swallows 

 were never prevented from building above our 

 windows, and, when about to migrate, they used to 

 assemble in hundreds on the roof of our house, and 

 prepared for their journey by short flights. We fed 

 the birds when the ground was covered with snow, 

 and opened our windows at breakfast-time to let in 

 the robins, who would hop on the table to pick up 

 crumbs. The quantity of singing birds was very 

 great, for the farmers and gardeners were less cruel 

 and avaricious than they are now though poorer. 

 They allowed our pretty songsters to share in the 

 bounties of providence. The shortsighted cruelty, 

 which is too prevalent now, brings its own punish- 

 ment, for, owing to the reckless destruction of birds, 

 the equilibrium of nature is disturbed, insects in- 

 crease to such an extent as materially to affect every 

 description of crop. This summer (1872), when I 

 was at Sorrento, even the olives, grapes, and oranges 



