THEIR PLACE IN NATURE 7 



of the arctic circle as being "white with millions 

 of wavy geese" (perhaps snow-geese) in the 

 breeding season. Good authorities state that nine 

 million penguins inhabit Dassen Island off the 

 Cape of Good Hope; and R. C. Murphy, of the 

 American Museum, speaks of almost a million 

 cormorants living on a tiny island off the coast of 

 Peru. While it is difficult to visualize these mil- 

 lions without seeing them, they nevertheless react 

 as a vivid contrast to the puny thousands of bisoB 

 and caribou. 



Therefore, because of their almost universal 

 distribution and the incalculable numbers in which 

 we find them, it is not at all surprising that birds 

 play a major part in the really small cosmos of our 

 planet. Theirs is a great mission, a mission which 

 is undertaken with the utmost diligence and cour- 

 age. In a large measure they preserve the Balance 

 of Nature, in that they check the swelling hordes 

 of insects, control the spread of plant life, replant 

 denuded land surfaces, and extirpate or control 

 the small vertebrates that first ravaged the vege- 

 tation of the world and then turned their atten- 

 tion to the crops of mankind. They are a power- 

 ful factor. 



2 



Natural Enemies 



Among the natural enemies of birds disease 

 probably holds a far more important position thaa 



