BRITISH REPTILES 
mandibles. In this manner, in past years, the so-called 
balance of nature was kept up one creature formed 
the food of another. Those creatures even that were 
most loathsome or at least so some of them would be 
considered were actually necessary, through their 
destruction of other creatures, to make those ague and 
fever-stricken districts habitable for human beings. 
When the reptiles ceased to be, the creatures that 
had fed on them were seen no more, which speaks for 
itself. Independently of this, another cause at times 
cleared those reptile-haunted flats, for, when at un- 
usually high tides and in rough weather the salt water 
broke the banks and drowned the flats with a salt 
flood, ' it pickled 'em/ as the marsh folks said. If 
the creatures that preyed on the reptiles had not 
been wantonly killed off in the southern counties, 
the latter would not be so numerous as they now are 
in some districts that I visit. 
