84 ACCIPITRES. 



implanted in them; and for the purposes of nature, the 

 fiercest bird of prey is as important as the gentlest warbler 

 that sings in the grove. All work beautifully together and 

 support one another, so as to produce and continue that glo- 

 rious system which we see around us. The plant collects the 

 first elements of organic life from the earth, the air, and the 

 waters ; and tempers them to the palates of the phytivorous 

 animals, from the smallest creature that curls or discolours a 

 leaf, to the tall giraffe and the stately elephant. Other races 

 consume those. Some birds take the eggs of the insects, 

 some the caterpillars, some the full grown insects ; then follow 

 the races which plunder the nests of birds, and feed upon 

 their unfledged young; and lastly, come the birds of prey, 

 feeding not merely on the other birds, but on the smaller 

 quadrupeds and the inhabitants of the sea. 



It may happen that the birds of prey interfere with our 

 plans, though it is probable that in their case, as well as in 

 that of many other birds, we know the evil but not the 

 good; and consequently, in our eagerness to destroy the evil, 

 we destroy the good along with it, and in the end lose much 

 more than our. labour. We set a price on the brush of a fox, 

 or the talons of an eagle, but it is open to every man's obser- 

 vation, that those places in which foxes are not hunted or 

 eagles shot, are not more impoverished than those in which 

 both are destroyed with the utmost vigilance. Nature never 

 sends any animal to inhabit a district unless there be food 

 and the other circumstances which suit that animal in that 

 district ; and when the food ceases or the circumstances are 

 changed, the animal disappears, as fast probably as is neces- 

 sary to the best interests and perfection even of our artificial 

 system. The kite would doubtless be a plunderer in the 

 poultry-yard, the osprey in the fish-pond, or the eagle in the 

 rabbit-warren; and the owner might claim their lives. If 

 we actually use any portion of the earth, then that portion is 



