VI. 



THE INSECTS. 



FROM the forest come a host of enemies to our 

 cultivated plants. Man tries to interfere with the 

 balance of life by protecting his pets from their 

 natural foes, but he rarely succeeds. On the con- 

 trary, a goodly number of new pests come to the 

 front ; they learn that the imported plant is more 

 luscious than those on which they have made a 

 precarious living for ages. Here someone has 

 brought a higher class of food to their very doors 

 as it were, and they are not bound so tightly by 

 the fetters of instinct as to despise it. We have 

 already hinted that animals and plants have some 

 reasoning power ; we have not the least doubt that 

 they learn by experience. 



The sugar-cane comes from the East where it 

 has enemies, some of which were probably brought 

 to the West Indies. Some two hundred years ago 



