FIRBY : BIRDS INSECTS. 



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powers of reproduction threaten, and sometimes more f^an threaten, to 

 destroy the vegetation existing upon the eartli's surface. Many of the larger 

 birds feed also on mice and reptiles, which, though insectivorous themselves, 

 would end in being troublesome through their multiplicity. We thus observe 

 that Providence, which overrules the whole economy of nature, and preserves 

 a proper equilibrium, does not always utilise the simplest and shortest way 

 of realising the accomplishment of its object ; but its views are themselves 

 so varied, that innumerable agents are constantly at work to secure the ulti- 

 mate end. It unfolds itself in a thousand multiform shapes, and displays 

 the wealth of its resources in apparently contradictory contrasts. Thus, in 

 the Insect world, we meet an assigned limitation, in combination with infinite 

 variety of form and immense profusion of species. Like Birds and Mammalia 

 it possesses its Herbivora and Carnivora most wisely distributed. Where 

 vegetation is most luxuriant, we find more Coleoptera than Phanerogamia ; 

 and amongst these beetles the Herbivora predominate. In mountainous 

 districts the Phanerogamia surpass the Coleoptera in numbers ; whilst in the 

 higher snow regions of the Alps, these last disappear long before the former; 

 and amongst the insec ts and spiders which exist beyond the limits of eternal 

 snow the Carnivora are more numerous than the Herbivora, this arrangement 

 being evidently for the express purpose of protecting these last and scanty 

 remnants of vegetation. 



Tlie vegetable world is the grand, the fundamental base on which the 

 higher orders of creation are built up. Without plants, animals cannot 

 exist ; for even the Carnivora are indirectly dependent on vegetation for 

 existence. If Providence is pleased to produce innumerable hosts and 

 varieties of the smaller animals, it imposes, as it were, a certain limit on itself 

 by proportionately and gradually placing, where necessary, numbers of Car- 

 nivora ; and if the wide spread tribe of birds be destined to subsist on 

 animals of an inferior order, it thus provides a means for the maintenance of 

 a perfect balance between the protectors and the destroyers of vegetable life. 

 Birds are Nature's soldiers, and keep in subjection the inferior animals. If 

 some amongst them constitute an excellent part of the food of man, furnish 

 him with eggs, with useful feathers, or with a good manure, all these services, 

 great as they undoubtedly are, are scarcely worth}' of notice when compared 

 with their labours in the destruction of insects. For this especial duty the 

 most essential of their orgaus have been admirabl}- adapted — their vision is 

 piercing, aud even the smallest among them possess the most extraordinary 

 powers of digestion — whilst their great activity and lightness enable tiiem to 



