62 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



our inquiry is clear : we must respect the web 

 of life if we wish to master Nature. She must 

 be humoured, not bullied. Emerson included in 

 his vision of a perfected earth the absence of 

 spiders, but the absence of spiders which snare 

 so many injurious insects would mean the absence 

 of much else, man probably included. In a 

 northern county in Scotland the proprietors were 

 justly annoyed at the injuries inflicted on young 

 trees by squirrels, and they formed a squirrel- 

 club, setting a price on the beautiful rodent's 

 head. Perhaps a wiser course would have been to 

 begin by inquiring what disturbance of the balance 

 of nature had allowed the squirrels to multiply 

 so disastrously. But, after a period of squirrel- 

 slaughter and some jubilation thereat, a cloud 

 began to rise in the sky. The wood-pigeons were 

 multiplying worse than ever, and the farmers, 

 at least, said with no uncertain voice that they 

 preferred the squirrels. An imperfect recognition 

 of the web of life had left out of account the 

 notable fact that squirrels destroy large numbers 

 of young wood-pigeons. 



One of the hopeful symptoms of the last few 

 years is the reawakening of an interest in woods 

 and forests. Every one knows how terribly these 

 have been wasted, and how the disastrous results 

 have affected rainfall and irrigation, climate and 

 crops, and even the character of the people. Here 

 what was once a pleasant stream is now like a 

 gravelly road, and there the fertile plains are 

 flooded ; here the wind is sweeping away the 

 soil, and there both beauty and health have 

 departed. The birds which the woods once 

 sheltered are driven elsewhere, and the insect- 



