PRESERVATION OF ANIMALS. 107 
If the arrangements of nature were left undisturbed, the result 
would be a wholesome equilibrium of destruction. The birds 
would kill so many insects that the insects could not kill too 
many plants. One class is a match for the other. A certain 
insect was found to lay 2,000 eggs, but a single tomtit was found 
to eat 200,000 eggs a-year. A swallow devours about 543 in- 
sects a day, eggs andall. Thehedgesparrow devours per day some 
550 insects. A sparrow’s nest in the City of Paris was found to 
contain 700 pairs of the wing cases of cockchafers, though of 
course in such a place food of other kinds was procurable in 
abundance. It will easily be seen, therefore, what an excess of 
insect life is produced when a counterpoise like this is withdrawn, 
and the statistics before us show clearly to what an extent the 
balance of nature has been disturbed. 
A third and wholly artificial class of destroyers has been intro- 
duced. Every Chasseur during the season kills, it is said, 100 
to 200 birds daily. A single child has been known to come 
home at night with 100 birds’ eggs, and it has been calculated 
and reported that the number of birds’ eggs destroyed annually 
in France is between 80,000,000 and 100,000,000. The result 
is that little birds in that country are actually dying out, some 
species have already disappeared, and others are rapidly diminish- 
ing. But there is another consequence. The French crops have 
suffered terribly from the superabundance of insect vermin. Not 
only the various kinds of grain, but the vines, the olives, and 
even forest trees, tell the same tale of mischief, till at length the 
alarm has become serious. The loss occasioned to the wheat in 
one single year, in one department of the east of France, by one 
sole species of larve, is estimated at £160,000 at the very least. 
To this insect are to be attributed the scanty harvests of the 
three years which preceded 1856. In Germany the Nun Moth 
(Psilura monacha), has caused whole forests to perish. Three 
years ago, in Eastern Prussia, more than 24,000,000 of cubic 
metres of fir wood were obliged to be felled, solely because the 
trees were dying from the attacks of insects. Birds are now 
likely to be protected, indeed, their rise in estimation has been 
signally rapid. Some philosopher has declared, and the report 
