ON THE REARING OF PHEASANTS BY HAND. 135 



When people let tlieir tongues run so loosely 

 on subjects tliey can practically know nothing 

 about J and when ''philosophers," or ''professors" 

 — professing a knowledge of things they are 

 obviously unacquainted with — declare we are to 

 jDreserve all things alike, so as to maintain the 

 equilibrium of nature, — predatory, venomous, or 

 otherwise,— they must give to rats, mice, ticks, 

 fleas, and meaner vermin still, the same protec- 

 tion that they assign to hawks, cats, polecats, 

 stoats and Aveasels, kites, crows, jays and 

 magpies. I marvel much if these professors of 

 they know not what, would abstain from activity 

 unto death did they feel a trespass in their hair, 

 or a lively visit to their skins, paid in a hop, 

 step, and a jump, when they supposed them- 

 selves comfortably in bed. A man once claimed 

 to be able to give the Promethean sj^ark of life 

 to a flea he had created out of coral dust, and, 

 I suppose, some other more vivifying ingredient ; 

 and the same man even descended in his claim 

 to be a creator, for he asserted he could trouble 

 the human head of a professor by worse things 

 than fleas, in whose composition, base as the 

 insects were, Avas the dust of diamonds. Such 



