330 Domestic Notices : — England. 



Ashmolean Society. Oxford, Feb. 26. — The president, the Rev. Dr. Cra- 

 mer, in the chair. The secretary, Mr. Bigge, read a paper " On the Balance 

 of Preservation and Destruction in the Animal Kingdom." He commenced 

 with a brief review of the proportionate amount of animal life in the various 

 geological zones of the earth, showing how the balance of numbers is con- 

 stantly maintained by ever-varying means. He then gave instances of partial 

 derangements in the relative numbers of animals caused by man, and the 

 readjustment of the balance by the operations of nature ; and pointed out 

 the frequent occasions where a spirit of indiscriminate destruction has led 

 to the extermination of animals whose beneficial uses were not justly appre- 

 ciated. Thus Mr. Yarrell, in his History of British Birds, mentions the re- 

 markable fact, that in some large farms in Devonshire, when the rooks had 

 been destroyed from their supposed hostility to the young crops, the cater- 

 pillars, and other insects that feed on vegetable substances, increased to such 

 an extent, and ruined the crops so utterly for three successive years, that the 

 farmers were obliged to import rooks in order to restore their farms. He 

 then alluded to the circumstance, that insects which are hurtful in their larva 

 state are frequently beneficial in some stage or other of their transformation, and 

 that the good in general overbalances the mischief caused by them. An extraor- 

 dinary increase in the number of any variety of animal is generally accompanied 

 with a corresponding increase of the animal whose province it is to check its 

 numbers ; thus, in 1814 and 1815, the swarms of field mice in the Forest of 

 Dean, which threatened at one time to destroy all the young trees, were fol- 

 lowed by swarms of hawks, owls, weasels, and magpies ; and ultimately the mice 

 turned and destroyed each other. Sometimes, however, the means of read- 

 justing the balance are not within reach. Thus in the Island of Mauritius, the 

 introduction of rats from the ships of the early Dutch settlers almost led to the 

 abandonment of the colony, as, from the distance of the island from the main 

 land, no influx of the natural enemies of the rat could take place. In 1826 

 the governor of the island offered a reward for rats' tails, and about 800,000 

 tails have been annually brought in ; fire, as well as other means of destroying 

 them, have also been adopted, but no artificial checks appear to be so effica- 

 cious as those provided by nature. There is no instance of the extermination 

 of a single species of animal except the dodo. Mr. Bigge concluded the 

 paper with pointing out, that, amidst the great variations in the relative 

 numbers of animals, the general result is, the preservation of each species in 

 sufficient force, that wherever the balance is disturbed, adequate means are 

 provided by nature to readjust it ; and that it is our duty, as well as our 

 interest, to study carefully the habits of animals supposed to be noxious, lest, 

 in our indiscriminate zeal to suppress them, we should abuse our power over 

 the inferior races, and inadvertently disturb the general harmony of the animal 

 system. (Atkenceum, April 9, 1842.) 



March 7. Professor Daubeny exhibited a specimen of Mr. Daniel's new 

 Patent Manure, which is stated by the inventor to consist of carbonate of 

 ammonia, sawdust, and bituminous matter. As the materials from which this 

 new kind of fertiliser is drawn appear to consist of inorganic matter ex- 

 clusively, Dr. Daubeny pointed out its discovery as an instance, amongst 

 many others, of the means which nature has placed within our reach for 

 increasing the amount of vegetable produce proportionately to the increase of 

 mankind, and so maintaining the necessary ratio between subsistence and an 

 increasing population. In a purely pastoral or agricultural community, it 

 might be unnecessary to have recourse to any other fertilising substances than 

 those which the manure of animals affords ; but, in a highly advanced con- 

 dition of society, in consequence of the large amount of produce consumed 

 by the inhabitants of the great towns, it becomes necessary to seek for new 

 materials to supply the loss which the soil of the country sustains. Thus, 

 bone-dust is procured from South America in such quantities, that it is com- 

 puted, on the calculation that each head of cattle supplies bony matter equal to 

 84 lb. in weight, that not less than 1,200,000 oxen are slaughtered annually in 



