226 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OP ANIMALS. CHAP. VII. 



obliged to relinquish the growth of Indian corn, from 

 the destructive propensities of these birds ; they strip 

 off the protecting leaves when the corn is just ripening, 

 and will often pick out every grain as effectually as if 

 it had been done by the hand, leaving only the worth- 

 less husk : we were, for some time, perplexed to ac- 

 count for this injury, until, by watching, we detected 

 three species the Parus ccerukus, major, and ater (or 

 palustris) all busily employed, and with the greatest 

 boldness, in this work of destruction. Blackbirds, 

 thrushes, and robins are wholesale depredators on the 

 small fruits, when they are ripe, particularly the latter, 

 two or three of which will strip a currant tree in as 

 many days. Sparrows, comparatively, do little harm 

 in gardens. We have no room to expatiate on the de- 

 struction caused to the grain crops by the maize birds 

 in America, the grakles in Africa, and the parrots in 

 Australia ; but it is often so great as almost to ruin the 

 settler, and diminish the property of the landholder. 



(238.) Quadrupeds, in such countries as are thinly 

 inhabited, commit extensive and destructive ravages. 

 One of the most pernicious is the hippopotamus, or 

 river horse of Africa, a large and powerful animal, 

 which, on leaving the water for its nocturnal ram- 

 bles, frequently tramples over large plantations of rice, 

 sugar-canes, &c., tearing up the shrubs, and causing 

 the most terrible devastation. Another, less formi- 

 dable in appearance, but equally injurious, is the Mus 

 Lemmus, or lemming rat, already alluded to as inha- 

 biting Norway and Lapland ; and which is, we are 

 informed, at once the wonder and the pest of those 

 countries. Pennant remarks that " vast numbers have 

 been known to march (like the army of locusts, so em- 

 phatically described by the prophet Joel), destroying in 

 their progress every root of grass, and spreading uni- 

 versal desolation. They infest the very ground; and 

 cattle are said to perish with the taste of the grass 

 which they have touched." The jackal is in some 

 countries an insidious enemy ; in the daytime drawing 



