I really think birds, to a very limited extent, keep insects in check ; there is always a 

 great excess of them over and above what the birds require and what they can possibly destroy. 

 Really, are the mosquitos ever less numerous in Nature's swamps in summer, notwithstanding the 

 numbers eaten by the birds then congregated at them when at their nests ? Or one might ask are 

 the fishes or shell-fish in the sea ever diminished in quantity, in consequence of the millions eaten 

 daily by birds and by each other, over and above the apparently significant yet really very insig- 

 nificant toll taken by man to supply his wants? 



We apparently wish to have our own ways and ideas in deciding as to what should be 

 satisfactory arrangements for Nature to make, but we may depend upon it she cares little for 

 our perhaps too officious interference, which, more often than not, is beneath her notice. 



Now what leads me to make these remarks is that it would appear, in some countries 

 where the birds are not interfered with, vegetation at times suffers at irregular periods from ex- 

 cessive quantities of locusts and other insects, showing us plainly that it often happens that the birds 

 can have little or no control over these excessive productions, which seem to occur in occasional 

 years only, and unaccountably. 



One might expect, in consequence of a plague of insects one season, there would be a far 

 greater plague the following one, in consequence of what we might expect from the numbers 

 breeding and multiplying, and that a greater famine would occur the following year in con- 

 sequence ; generally, however, no such calamity occurs ; all is arranged by Nature and managed 

 to her entire satisfaction, notwithstanding the hordes which escaped such wholesale destructions 

 as we sometimes read of, as by millions of them falling into the sea and being drowned and left on 



