56 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



with death every day of his Ufe, — all without realizing either 

 the magnitude or the intensity of the game he is playing. ^ 



The big fish eat the little ones ; the wolf and the jackal hunt 

 beast and bird ; the feathered tribe makes life intolerable for 

 beetle, bug, and worm ; and while beak and tooth and claw are , 

 busy with destruction, the parasite sucks the blood of the depre- 

 dator or gnaws his vitals out as he hunts his defenseless prey. 

 Nothing is exempt. It is a warfare not only of strength and 

 cunning but of resistance and endurance as well. || 



This consumption of one species as food for another is im- 

 mensely destructive of individuals. A single large animal in a 

 day will consume seeds or small plants literally by the thousand ; 

 often, besides, it destroys as much as it eats. It is estimated that 

 each cat on the average destroys fifty birds per year. One large 

 fish will consume immense numbers of small fry. Most eggs of 

 birds serve as food for snakes or other birds. Only a few are 

 hatched, and most of these follow the fate of the egg in which 

 life was destroyed before it appeared .^ 



Broadly speaking, and in general terms, animal life subsists 

 upon plant life, and it in turn upon the mass of nonliving matter 

 of which the world is made, so that the two together complete 

 a kind of cycle, ending where they began, after the animal has 

 finished its life and returned to dust. It will not do, however, 

 to rest so important a matter on such generalized and imperfect 

 statements. Briefly and substantially the facts are as follows : 



All living structures ^ are characterized by more or less highly 

 organized compounds, of which carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen are 



1 Man is undoubtedly the only animal that has any true knowledge of death, 

 or appreciation of it when it has occurred. Wild animals attack moving things 

 and are entirely satisfied with simulated death ; that is, they fight whatever 

 moves, but desist when motion ceases unless impelled by hunger, in which case 

 they do not wait for cessation of motion, but eat the prey alive or as soon as its 

 escape no longer seems likely. 



2 It is impossible to estimate the destruction wrought by such predatory 

 animals as the blue jay, the kingbird, the hawk, and the cat. 



3 By this is meant the bodies of animals and the stems and leaves of trees 

 and plants. 



