KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



211 



of this fertility is exercised. Upon a subject 

 so much above even our comprehension, it is 

 impossible to state with numerical precision 

 what would be the result of this production 

 if insects were not restrained, by their being 

 made to support other departments of nature. 

 It is not, however, too much to say that, if all 

 the eggs of insects which are deposited upon 

 the leaves, and other parts of plants, in this 

 country, were to come to maturity, they 

 would not leave a single green leaf upon a 

 tree. If those which are deposited in the 

 earth were in like manner to come to 

 maturity, they would not leave a single herb 

 upon its surface ; while if those which are 

 deposited in the water, and remain there, 

 were all to come to maturity, and continue 

 their increase, they would thicken every pool 

 and stream to the consistency of mire. Even 

 this is a very slight and imperfect view of 

 the amazing energy of life which is possessed 

 by these little creatures ; for it is no exagge- 

 ration to say that, were their powers to be 

 exerted to the full extent for only a very few 

 years — and were such a result possible from 

 the nature of its substance, they would, in 

 those few years, convert the whole matter of 

 the earth itself into insects. 



It is true that this tremendous power is 

 never worked to the full measure ; but that is 

 no argument against its existence. The 

 powers wherewith the Almighty has endowed 

 matter, in order that it may accomplish the 

 purposes of his will, are not subjects which 

 we can measure with a line, weigh in a 

 balance, or sum up by our imperfect and 

 limited arithmetic. They are ordained by 

 him to control matter, to work it into those 

 combinations, and mould it into those shapes 

 which he has ordained. As he has appointed 

 them, so has he given them strength for the 

 perfect accomplishment of their labors. This 

 strength, no resistance of merely inactive 

 matter can successfully oppose ; and there- 

 fore he has wisely set the one of them to re- 

 gulate and control the other, and preserve 

 them in those bounds which are conducive to 

 the greatest good of the whole. 



Such are the germs of provision, which lie 

 ready to be called forth in such abundance 

 as not only to continue their own species to 

 the full amount which nature requires, but to ] 

 furnish an ample store for many resident • 

 animals of a larger growth, and also for those j 

 migrants which come from distant lands. The 

 fresh-water fishes, many of the small mam- ! 

 malia, as well as many of our resident birds, 

 are supported during the season of their ; 

 greatest activity upon this provision of insects , 

 and other small animals ; for those birds i 

 which during the winter season collect seeds i 

 in the fields, or wild berries and other little j 

 fruits from the hedges and bushes, feed their 

 young almost exclusively, and themselves in | 



great part, upon insects and small animals, 

 during the nesting time, when their labors are 

 most severe. But notwithstanding the abun- 

 dant portion which is thus afforded to the 

 larger inhabitants of the earth, the waters, 

 and the air, the numbers of insects and small 

 animals that is left is great everywhere ; and 

 it is so immense in some places, that they 

 literally encumber the atmosphere, and 

 darken the sun, as if they were thick clouds 

 of driven snow. Over some of the marshes 

 in Canada, when the heat of the summer sun 

 beats strongly upon that country of extreme 

 seasons, woe to the man who takes shelter 

 under a marsh tree, from the fervor of the 

 burning sun ! Gnats and mosquitos are con- 

 gregated there in myriads ; so that, before 

 he can effect a retreat, every naked part of 

 his skin is tingling and smarting, and his 

 clothes are so loaded with the little pests, 

 that it is not without great difficulty he can 

 shake them off. In the marshes of polar 

 Europe the numbers are not quite so great ; 

 but still one who visits those marshes when 

 they are bound up in the ice and snow of 

 winter, and again after the heat- of the sun 

 has awakened the germs of life which then 

 lay dormant, would be quite astonished at the 

 transition. 



In the case of winter, there is not a living 

 thing — not one little wing in the air. The 

 sun has set for the long night of winter ; and 

 the dominion of that season is complete and 

 tranquil. There is not even a perceptible 

 particle of moist in the atmosphere ; for as the 

 sun, which is the grand agent in its ascent, 

 has totally withdrawn his beams for the time, 

 winter has congealed every atom of water, 

 and added it to 1 the snowy mantle where- 

 withal those lands are protected, to be ready 

 for the powerful action of their brief but 

 vigorous spring. In summer, again, the sun 

 which awakens those germs of insect life is 

 constantly present for some time, and nearly 

 present the whole day for much longer; 

 therefore the powers of life in the waters are 

 worked to their full extent, and the mighty 

 swarms to which we have alluded are the 

 result. 



In such places it is the waters chiefly 

 which bring forth this seasonal life. Trees 

 are but few there; and the soft bud and 

 tender leaf which support the caterpillars of 

 butterflies and moths in such a country as 

 Britain, are hardly known. Hence the abun- 

 dance of such countries for the supply of 

 birds is by the margins of the morasses, the 

 pools, and the other waters; and therefore 

 the birds which move northwards, to breed 

 there, are mostly either water birds or birds 

 of the margins of the waters. 



This abundant supply in the polar lands 

 draws such birds northwards in vast flocks ; 



