232 
Destructive Insects and Utility of Birds. 
finch (Loria locotJiraustes) — in all about 30 species — have not a 
full right to the name which their order bears, since all the 
buntings, all the chaffinches, and all the sparrows consume 
during the summer as much animal as vegetable matter, if not 
more. The only birds which feed exclusively on vegetables are 
the pigeon tribe, including about 5 species. 
Thus one order only, comprising but one single family, 
together with a few scanty families taken from other orders, 
forming when put together but one-twelfth or one-thirteenth 
part of our birds, constitutes the total of those which exclusively 
consume vegetable food. There is also another fact not devoid 
of interest to the agriculturist, viz., that the Granivora principally 
choose and prefer the seeds of obnoxious plants, of which they 
destroy vast quantities. 
This rapid survey is suggestive of highly important c,on- 
siderations. It brings under our notice the great and inva- 
riable harmony existing in Nature in the distribution of the 
earth's produce ; for when we come to consider the sort of 
animal food that birds make use of, we cannot deny that they 
tend to the preservation of the vegetable kingdom. In effect, all 
the Insectivora, the Zygodactyli, the Grallap, nearly all the Pal- 
mipedes, the species of Gallina* and of Corvi, a part of the 
Granivora, and even the greater number of the Rapaces, either 
feed exclusively or partially on those classes of animals, such as 
beetles, caterpillars, larva>, flies, Neoroptera, Hymenoptera, 
Rhinosimus, spiders, Crustacea, worms, and Mollusca, which by 
their extraordinary powers of reproduction threaten, and some- 
times more than threaten, to destroy the vegetation existing on 
the earth's surface. Many of the larger birds feed also on mice 
and reptiles, which, though insectivorous themselves, would end 
in being troublesome through their numbers. Truly Providence 
does not, to our mind, always make use of the simplest and 
shortest way of realising its object ; but its views are themselves 
so varied, that innumerable agents are constantly at work to 
secure the end. It unfolds itself in a thousand different shapes, 
and displays its wealth in apparently contradictory contrasts. 
Thus in the Insect world we meet an assigned limit, combined 
with infinite variety of form and immense profusion of species. 
Like Birds and Mammalia, it possesses its Herbivora and Carni- 
vora most wisely distributed. Where vegetation is most luxu- 
riant, we find more Coleoptcra than Phanerogama ; and amongst 
these beetles the Herbivora predominate. In mountainous districts 
Phanerogama surpass the Coleoptera in numbers ; whilst in the 
higher regions of the Alps, these last disappear long before the 
former ; and amongst the insects and spiders which exist beyond 
the limits of eternal snow the Carnivora are more numerous than 
