Frerepay.—On the Injuries to Vegetation by Insects. 289 
ArT. XX XIII. — On the direct Injuries to Vegetation in New Zealand by 
various Insects, especially with reference to Larve of Moths and Beetles 
Seeding upon the Field Crops; and the Expediency of introducing 
Insectivorous Birds as a Remedy. By R. W. Ferepay, C.M.E.S.L. 
[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 12th December, 1872.] 
THE little time and attention that I have been able to afford to its investiga- 
tion precludes my treating exhaustively a subject so comprehensive as that of 
Injuries caused by Insects, and Benetits derived from Insectivorous Animals; 
but, should the members of the Society be sufficiently interested, I hope, on 
some future occasion, to enlarge upon the subject in a series of papers. 
It has been observed by the authors of a valuable work on entomology, 
that if it were not for certain counter-checks restraining them within due 
limits, insects would drive mankind, and all the larger animals, from the face 
of the earth.—That “the common good of this terraqueous globe requires 
that all things endowed with vegetable, or animal life, should bear certain 
proportions to each other, and if any individual species exceeds that pro- 
portion it becomes noxious, and interferes with the general welfare.” And 
they ask, “ How is it that the Great Being of beings preserves the system, 
which he has created, from permanent injury in consequence of the too great 
redundancy of any individual species, but by employing one creature to prey 
upon another, and so overruling and directing the instincts of all that they 
may operate most where they are most wanted.” È 
So long as this balance remains undisturbed, so long will harmony prevail; 
and whenever we suffer excessive injuries from insects, or other animals, the 
cause may generally, if not invariably, be traced either directly or indirectly 
to the agency of man alone. Man, in his blindness, is ever breaking, or 
throwing out of gear, some wheel of the great cosmical machine, and disorder 
necessarily follows. 
In illustration of this, I would point to the great increase of caterpillars, 
and other larvæ, in the neighbourhood of Christchurch during the last four or 
five years—an increase attributable in all probability to the following simple 
causes :— 
In the early days of the Canterbury settlement, quails, larks, and other 
birds that fed upon insects and their larvæ, abounded on the plains; but the 
quails have been exterminated, the larks have become comparatively scarce, 
and the other birds have almost disappeared. So long as the plains remained 
open and uncultivated, extensive grass-fires sweeping over the land consumed 
an enormous amount of insect life, and took the place of that counter-check 
which was being removed by the decrease of the birds ; but within the last 
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