I. THE KING OF BEASTS. 21 



American cat, the jaguar, is an ill-tempered fellow, ring- 

 spotted like the leopard ; but the spots are larger and more 

 definitely arranged. 



Such are some of the great cats, the cousins more or less 

 distant of the king of beasts. They have played a great 

 part in the economy of nature, each having some particular 

 forms of prey among the larger herbivorous creatures which 

 they keep in check. Nature is full of balance : the animal 

 world, breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbonic 

 acid, is balanced against the vegetable world which seizes 

 the carbon from the carbonic acid and restores the oxygen 

 to the air. And in the animal world the carnivorous 

 creatures are balanced against the herbivores on which 

 they prey. Man steps in and alters the balance of nature. 

 He clears the forests, he slays the carnivorous creatures 

 for sport and the herbivores for sport and food. Who can 

 say what ultimate changes are effected by his actions ? 

 In but few cases can we attempt to follow them. Darwin 

 describes one which I will give in a somewhat extended 

 form. Who would think that the force and vigour of the 

 English race depended largely on the number of old maids 

 in certain districts ? And yet the two are connected in a 

 beautiful manner. Every one knows that the character of 

 John Bull is mainly the result of the roast beef that he 

 consumes. But the beasts from which some of the best 

 roast beef is obtained are fed on clover. So that our pluck 

 and courage depend on clover. The clover is fertilized by 

 humble-bees, which carry the pollen from flower to flower. 

 The more humble-bees therefore the wider fertilization, 

 and the better the crops of English clover. But the number 

 of bees is dependent upon the number of field-mice which 

 destroy their combs and nests. The more mice the less 

 bees, and the worse clover. Now the number of mice is 

 largely dependent, as every one knows, on the number of 

 cats, and to complete the chain, the number of cats, it is 



