Nature's Militia 269 



be found upon the ground, and if they cannot find it in one 

 place they are obhged to look for it in another. If the 

 farmer will not spare them a few trees and bashes, they 

 are compelled to desert his fields and leave them unpro- 

 tected. 



But this is not all. Grubs as well as birds find 

 shelter in the hedges; and not only shelter, but food. 

 When the birds are driven away, therefore, the grubs are 

 driven away, too; but, alas! while the birds migrate to a 

 distance, the grubs are only driven out of the bushes and 

 hedge-plants, where they are comparatively harmless, into 

 fields, orchards, and gardens, where, in the absence of 

 the "militia," they run riot as they will. 

 We see, indeed, the 



" Hedges all alive 

 With birds and gnats, and large white butterflies, 

 Which look as if the May-flower had caught Hfe, 

 And palpitated forth upon the wind." 



We see; but perhaps we hardly realize that if the 

 hedge be cut down its population will find quarters else- 

 where; and that while the birds betake themselves to the 

 nearest thicket, perhaps some distance off, the butterflies 

 and moths will simply flit a few yards, many of them 

 being quite content to supply their offspring with culti- 

 vated plants when they cannot get wild ones. Somewhere 

 or other they must and will lay their eggs — if not in the 

 hedgerow, then in the garden; and the grub of the white 

 butterfly is, as we all know, able to make quite a decent 

 living upon cabbage-leaves. 



But this was not all, or nearly all. Not only had the 

 grubs been driven into the fields, and the birds driven out 

 of them, but the latter had been killed wholesale. Gov- 



