TRAGEDY IN NATURE 149 



where the spear beak struck; the rail above the outflow 

 stream glistens in the sun, for there the kingfisher beats 

 off the scales of the minnows, its victims. Under the 

 bracken fronds are bleached bones of a fallow fawn, 

 starved during the winter; a ring-dove, struck down but 

 discarded, suggests the passage of a peregrine; a litter of 

 feathers is all that the fox has left to mark the murder 

 of a pheasant. The tail of a chaffinch and a decapitated 

 bunting lie at the foot of the tree where a carrion has a 

 nest ; not far away are a brood of young jays, thrown out to 

 perish miserably when a fierce gale overturned the nest. 



Man, though the direct or indirect cause of the death 

 of many creatures, plays but a small part in this great 

 tragedy of nature. His interference, except in a few 

 instances, does not lessen or increase the actual death-rate 

 of wild creatures; slaughter for food continues whether 

 he steps in to take a hand or not. When, however, he 

 attempts to regulate the massacre, strives to protect 

 one species from its foes or to wipe another off the face of 

 the land, he causes widespread calamity, for very precise 

 and definite, albeit ruthless, laws regulate birth and 

 death rate in nature. The Balance of Nature have not 

 the masters of science pointed out what it means again 

 and again ? Yet, how readily we forget or ignore their 

 teaching, for the relative abundance of interdependent 

 animals and plants must be, in the long run, a stable 

 quantity. In order that there may be neither increase 

 nor decrease, when we take an average of many genera- 

 tions, it is absolutely necessary that each pair of animals 

 shall produce during their whole lifetime no more nor no 

 less than a couple of offspring to peipetuate the species; 

 the rest, however many see the light of day, must perish 

 childless. Naturally the number varies with regard to 

 individuals; some leave more survivors, some none, and 

 from year to year increase or decrease in the species may 



