ON BIRDS, INSECTS AND FRESH-WATER FISHES. 3 



{Apteryx) will require protection to retain them. In a few 

 instances, as in the penguins, remote haunts, active aquatic 

 habits and great boldness have aided the species in warding off 

 destruction and placed them in a different category. The 

 agency of man quickly diminishes many of the larger birds of 

 flight, and this notwithstanding legislative protection. Without 

 the latter where would our wild swans, geese and ducks have 

 been ? where the capercaillie, black-cock, grouse, pheasant and 

 partridge ? The same lesson is learned when we contrast the 

 former condition of the rook with the present one of modified 

 protection. A few birds, as the sparrow, cushat and passenger- 

 pigeon, appear to be exceptions under certain conditions ; but 

 these in the former case are due to the complications of civilized 

 life itself, and in the latter often depend on immigration, and 

 thus are seldom altogether beyond man's influence. 



The air, however, differs from the land not only in its vast- 

 ness, but in the fact that certain of its inhabitants, e.g. the 

 insects, seem to defy man's power and ingenuity in limiting their 

 numbers. Thus, is the house-fly less abundant now than in 

 the days of the ancient Egyptians ? Do the hordes of locusts, 

 gnats, Hessian flies, mosquitoes, or other forms show marked 

 diminution ? Yet in all these instances the eggs are deposited 

 on or near the surface of the earth and within man's reach. 

 Even where elaborate measures are taken to encompass the 

 destruction of a noxious form, e.g. the vine-parasite. Phylloxera, 

 on plants under man's immediate care, how difficult is it, with 

 all the resources of modern chemistry, to attain success. The 

 same applies to the larger insects, such as wasps, the nests of 

 which are easily reached. 



From age to age these denizens of the air have kept their 

 ground against all the forces man could bring against them, 

 and yet they would have required aerial eggs to have placed 

 them on a similar footing to most of the food-fishes of our 

 waters. 



The elaborate laws framed for the protection of the more 

 valuable fishes of the fresh waters of our country are suffi- 

 cient proofs of the care which is necessary for their protec- 

 tion. Diminution of these is readily caused by the various 



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