220 FAVOURABLE EVIDENCE. 



Considerable as are these losses, you will be surprised, Messieurs 

 les Senateurs, that they are not greater, when you consider the por- 

 tentous fecundity with which these adversaries are endowed ; and if 

 Divine Providence had not raised up, in us your petitioners, a pre- 

 ventive check worthy of His wisdom, long ago would all vegetation 

 have disappeared from the surface of the earth. Man, in fact, is 

 powerless to combat with enemies like these. His genius is able to 

 measure the course of the stars, to perforate mountains, to make a 

 ship pursue her way in the teeth of the tempest ; the beasts of the 

 forest retreat before his advancing steps ; but, in the presence of 

 the myriads of insects who fall upon his cultivated fields and render 

 all his labours vain, his strength is only weakness. His eye is too 

 feeble to catch sight of more than a few of them ; his hand is too 

 sluggish to strike them; and besides, could he crush them by 

 millions, they would be reproduced by billions. From above, from 

 below, from the east, from the west, their countless legions succeed 

 each other, in relays which know neither repose nor armistice. In 

 this indestructible army, which marches to the conquest of human 

 labour, each regiment has its allotted month, its day, its season, 

 its plant, its tree. Each knows its own post in the fray, and never 

 errs in taking it. Man must have succumbed in this unequal 

 struggle, had not Providence given him in us the Birds power- 

 ful auxiliaries, faithful allies, who marvellously well perform the 

 task that man is incompetent to accomplish. Yes, Messieurs les 

 Senateurs, we, your petitioners, are in reality your patrons and pro- 

 tectors. 



For the sake of retrieving our characters, we have submitted to 

 post-mortem examination: our stomachs have been searched, and 

 medical men will certify, not only in what proportion we feed on 

 insects, but what particular species we search out and destroy, and, 

 consequently, what plants we preserve from their enemies. 



The three hundred and thirty species of birds who breed in 

 France may be divided into three principal classes. In the first, 

 your petitioners will place all birds who are injurious, at least, in- 

 directly so, inasmuch as they destroy many of us, the insectivorous 

 birds. It includes the diurnal birds of prey, the Eagles and Hawks, 

 and also the omnivorous birds, the Crows, Magpies, and Jays. But 

 here justice compels us to make an honourable exception in favour 

 of the common and the rough-legged Buzzards, each individual of 

 whom consumes about six thousand mice per annum. Complete 

 absolution must be granted to the Rook, for his assistance in the 

 destruction of cockchafer grubs. 



In the second class, your petitioners range what are called gran- 

 ivorous birds, but who, in reality, are birds of double alimentation ; 

 for, with the exception of the Pigeon, there is no bird which is 

 purely granivorous ; they all feed, either at the same time, or accord- 

 ing to the season, both on seeds and insects. Noxious in the first 

 case, useful in the second, there is a balance to be struck between 



