248 OUR OBLIGATIONS TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 



the property of the farmer in his crops, upon ravens 

 that they should not kill lambs or pick out the eyes of 

 ewes, upon rooks that they should confine their diet 

 exclusively to wireworms and other creatures injurious 

 to plant-life well and good, let us have as many of 

 these interesting or lively birds as possible : but failing 

 that corresponding obligation, man must exercise the 

 right founded upon might the only right recognised 

 in the scheme of nature and protect his crops and 

 flocks. 



The more closely and carefully one searches in 

 nature for any trace of rights apart from might, the 

 more irresistible becomes the conviction that such 

 rights have no existence among living creatures. 

 Many mammals and birds, most insects, almost all 

 reptiles and fishes, depend for subsistence upon the 

 violent destruction of weaker creatures. Sometimes 

 the act of destruction is accentuated by what, in a 

 human being, would be denounced as sickening cruelty. 

 Consider the habits of the many species of ichneumon 

 fly. The parent deposits its eggs in the bodies of living 

 caterpillars. Presently from the egg is hatched a 

 maggot, which slowly devours the tissues of its living 

 host, carefully preserving the vital organs as a final 

 bonne bouche, and, after reducing it to a mere husk, 

 turns into a perfect fly, to repeat in its turn the grue- 

 some tragedy upon another generation. What is the 

 life-history of the cuckoo, whom everybody hails with 

 welcome, but an execrable violation of any domestic 

 rights which hedge-sparrows or water-wagtails might 

 be supposed to possess ? For every single cuckoo that 



