282 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



difference to us outwardly, yet to think of it is upsetting to the 

 mind. So the world moves slowly, but the wonder, perhaps, is 

 that it moves at all. 



I was watching some Swallows to-day flying about over a 

 sandy meadow, when a white butterfly that looked like a belated 

 cabbage one suddenly disappeared, engulphed by one of them. It 

 is not often that one sees a Swallow take so large an insect. In 

 fact, I cannot myself make out that butterflies are much preyed 

 upon by birds ; they are not sufficiently so, at any rate, for the 

 fact to be forced upon one. It may be true that they fell victims 

 when introduced into parks, but here the conditions were some- 

 what artificial. The bird that outnumbers all others in our parks 

 — or, rather, monopolizes them — is the Sparrow, and Sparrows, 

 especially London Sparrows, are "like French falconers — fly at 

 anything." The novelty, I think, too, must have had something 

 to do with it. Butterflies are thought to be scarce in England, 

 compared with continental countries. It is collectors, in my 

 opinion, rather than the birds, who keep them down. Is there 

 any other country than this where almost every boy has a box or 

 two of worthless, dry, stuck things, or any where men continue 

 so long to be boys, intellectually speaking ? And then why speak 

 of the Continent as if it were all one ? In Italy, indeed — perhaps 

 because the people are starved for the country to be a great 

 power — bird-life is deplorably scarce ; at least, I am told so. 

 The Germans, however, are great bird-lovers, and where I was, 

 at any rate, birds seemed to me much more abundant than 

 here, both in species and individuals. So, too, did insects. 

 People who think that the abundance of a preying species must 

 mean the scarcity of species preyed upon seem to me to forget a 

 few facts, as e.g. the state of South Africa when the Dutch first 

 began to colonize it ; the far greater numbers, formerly, of fish 

 in the Thames when Otters were also much more plentiful ; the 

 teeming myriads of fish in the sea all eating each other, or being 

 eaten by hosts of Seals and birds. The law, indeed, would seem 

 to be, as one might expect, that an abundance of the eater goes 

 hand in hand with a much greater abundance of the eaten, and this 

 law holds good, as a rule, till civilized man steps upon the scene to 

 upset, with greed, sport, and collecting, the balance of nature. The 

 vast herds of Bison that once roamed over the North American 



