16 GAME PRESERVERS AND BIRD PRESERVERS. 



anxious to protect at tlie same time the very 

 birds which will inevitably destroy the harm- 

 less birds in countless thousands, and during 

 their breeding season — to go back to the 

 state of things that existed before man inter- 

 fered, — and they maintain that while all his 

 success and his very existence depend on his 

 having interfered in the animal and vegetable 

 world, in his having destroyed creatures that 

 were noxious to him, and having protected 

 creatures that were useful to him, in the bird 

 world a state of things exists called the balance 

 of nature, with which he ought never to inter- 

 fere. Mr. W. C. Angus thinks, 'as a rule, 

 that Nature, if left to herself, will fairly pre- 

 serve the balance.' But this will be the 

 balance that existed before man appeared. 

 Is it likely to be what is now required ? 



As a sinc^le instance that the balance which 

 Nature establishes is not the balance among 

 birds which is useful to man, any more than 

 among beasts, we may mention that she loves 



