344. FIELD, FOREST AND FARM 



"By what perversity are we, in general, impelled 

 to destroy animals whose cooperation is so much to 

 our advantage? Nearly all our helpers are perse- 

 cuted. Their good will must be indomitable to make 

 them bear our ill treatment and not forsake our 

 dwellings and fields, never to return. The bat rids 

 us of a host of enemies, and is nevertheless under 

 the ban; the mole clears the soil of vermin, and is 

 likewise proscribed ; the hedge-hog wages war on 

 vipers and cut- worms, and it too is an outlaw ; the 

 owl and various other night birds are accomplished 

 rat-hunters, and they also are in disfavor ; the adder, 

 toad, and lizard feed on the ravagers of our crops, 

 and all the while we hold them in abhorrence. They 

 are ugly, we say, and without further reason we kill 

 them. But, blind slayers, the day will come when 

 you will perceive that you have been sacrificing your 

 own defenders to an irrational repugnance. You 

 complain of rats, but you nail the owl to your door 

 and let its body dry in the sun as a hideous trophy ; 

 you cry out against cut-worms, but you crush the 

 mole every time your spade turns one up ; you dis- 

 embowel the hedge-hog and set your dogs on him 

 just for fun; you bewail the ravages of moth and 

 worm in your granaries, but if the bat falls into 

 your clutches it is seldom that you show him any 

 mercy. Your complaints go up to heaven, but all 

 these willing helpers of yours you treat as creatures 

 accursed. Blind fools that you are, filled with an 

 insane desire to kill ! 



"Insect-eating birds are of immense importance 



