MAN'S RECKLESS GREED 369 



manures. Such a state of things is possibly in store for 

 future generations of men ! It is not " science " that will 

 be to blame for these horrors, but should they come 

 about they will be due to the reckless greed and the mere 

 insect-like increase of humanity. 



In the destruction of trees and all kinds of plants man 

 has deliberately done more mischief than in the exter- 

 mination of animals. By inadvertence he has completely 

 abolished the strange and remarkable trees and shrubs of 

 islands such as St. Helena where the herbivorous 

 animals introduced by him have made short work of the 

 wonderful native plants isolated for ages, and have com- 

 pletely exterminated them, so that they are " extinct." 

 We have just had the opportunity of studying one of the 

 few oceanic islands " Christmas Island " (forty square 

 miles in area)- untouched by man until thirty years ago. 

 It lies 200 miles south of Java. Its native inhabitants, 

 plants and animals were carefully examined, and speci- 

 mens secured twenty years ago. There were then no 

 human inhabitants, and the island was rarely visited. It 

 was, however, about twelve years ago handed over by its 

 proprietors to some thousand Chinamen to dig and ship 

 the 15,000,000 tons of valuable "phosphate " (at a profit 

 of a guinea a ton), which forms a large part of its surface. 

 And now from time to time we shall have reports of this 

 result of contact with man, and through him with all the 

 plagues and curses of the great world. Already a remark- 

 able shrew-mouse and two native species of rat, peculiar 

 to the island, have disappeared. Dr. Andrews (' Proceed- 

 ings of the Zoological Society,' February 2nd, 1909), who 

 has twice explored the island, gives evidence that this is 

 caused by a parasitic disease (due to a trypanosome like 

 those which cause sleeping-sickness and various horse and 

 cattle diseases) introduced by the common black rats from 



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