JANUARY 29 



to keep it in check, it would possess the face of the 

 earth to the exclusion of every other. Mr. David Sharp, 

 who has in charge the insect department of the excel- 

 lent Cambridge Natural History now being published, 

 observes with professional pride 



'The larger part of the animal matter existing on the 

 whole lands of the globe is, in all probability, locked up in 

 the forms of insects. Taken as a whole, they are the most 

 successful of all the forms of terrestrial animals.' 



Antinous and the Venus de' Medici are not in it, 

 it seems. In fact, mere human beings would be 

 crowded out sooner or later but for one providential 

 circumstance, namely, that this vast populace of six- 

 legged creatures is divided into two hosts, one of which 

 is perpetually destroying the other. Even this were 

 not enough, for the victors would make life intolerable 

 for other forms of living things; so birds, beasts, 

 reptiles, and fishes of many kinds have been appointed 

 to police these dangerous classes. 



XIII 



No part of the British Isles was more completely 

 denuded of its native wood than this south-western 

 angle of Scotland, and with the forest dis- Revival of 

 appeared much of the woodland fauna. We primitive 

 still dig out of the clay at our river-mouths fauna 

 horns of red deer of a size that could be attained only 

 in the warmth and shelter of wide forest; so that it 

 does not need the more direct testimony, which is also 

 present, of trunks and roots of oaks, Scotch fir, birch, 



