234 OUR INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES 



animal, to the detriment of the other species, 

 is held in check, and is practically impossible. 

 Not so, however, in the artificial environment 

 created by man in his cultivated fields and 

 gardens; there we shall find in the various 

 growing crops an abnormally abundant supply 

 of food provided for these injurious insects, 

 while the majority of their natural foes are 

 absent, driven away and destroyed by man. 

 Small wonder, therefore, that thus unchecked 

 and supplied with an abundance of food, the 

 insects should multiply with astonishing rapidity, 

 and become in a short space of time converted 

 into an all-devouring host, whose ravages are 

 only to be combated by unceasing and costly 

 labour. Nor will this annual, and what might be 

 unnecessary, expenditure of capital and labour 

 decrease until the present ruthless and sense- 

 less slaughter of insect-eating birds is checked, 

 either by new and more drastic laws, or by the 

 active administration and revision of the existing 

 neglected Wild Birds' Protection Act. 



The amount of hereditary ignorance and pre- 

 judice existing amongst both farmers, gardeners, 

 and gamekeepers concerning bird life, is as 

 astonishing as it is lamentable, causing as it 

 does the slaughter of hundreds of innocent and 

 useful creatures annually. Every Owl nailed to 

 the barn-door does not represent one foe the 

 less, but one faithful friend, who, if permitted to 

 live, would have destroyed hundreds of mice and 

 rats, and thereby prevented the destruction of 

 much grain and the loss of many an egg and 

 young chick ; for nine times out of ten it is the 



