viii.] PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 133 



killing the rich grasses as they went, till they met 

 another forest coming up from below, and fought it 

 for many a year, till both made peace, and lived 

 quietly side by side for ages." Kingsley, '''Madam 

 How." 



So will the consequences be however we interfere 

 with Nature, whom Canon Kingsley speaks of as 

 Madam How. If we but cut a drain through a wood 

 or common, we shall assuredly interfere with the flora 

 of such district, and when we have done that other 

 changes must follow. Or if we commence at the 

 other end of the series and destroy the small birds 

 as until recently was extensively done, under the 

 supposition that they destroyed the fruit crop, and 

 there are still farmers and others sufficiently ignorant 

 to follow the same destructive method. Kill off the 

 small birds to save your fruit trees, and what will you 

 have as the result ? Insects swarming everywhere ; 

 leaves all yellow and riddled with holes, or reduced 

 to skeletons ; flower-buds destroyed, and the fruit 

 that has managed to set all maggoty. This is the 

 price ignorant man pays for his senseless interference. 

 Because the birds rob him of a little fruit he snares 

 or shoots them, and as the result loses all that which 

 he had killed the birds to protect a hundredth part 

 of. Recently we came across a paragraph we had cut 

 from the "Daily News," in 1865 or '6 we are un- 

 certain which but it so admirably illustrates the 

 results of this interference that we insert it here : 



" EFFECTS OF DESTROYING SMALL BIRDS. The pheno- 

 mena of the present season are remarkable. If we go for 

 shade into the woods in this leafy month of June we stop 



