Destructive Insects and Utility of Birds. 
233 
the Herbivora, this arrangement being evidently for the express 
purpose of protecting these last and scanty remnants of vegetation. 
The vegetable world is the 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. 
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 Carnivora ; and if the wide-spread tribe of 
birds be destined to feed on animals of an inferior order, it thus 
provides a means for the maintenance of a perfect balance between 
the protectors and destroyers of vegetation. 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 are scarcely worthy of notice when 
compared with their labours in the destruction of insects. For 
tliis especial duty the most essential of their organs have been 
adapted — their sight is piercing, and even the very smallest among 
them possess the most extraordinary powers of digestion — whilst 
their great activity and lightness enable them to exercise their 
calling incessantly and where most required. The reproductive 
powers of birds and their instinct of migration are also due to the 
office imposed upon them. When in the North the insect world 
drops into its wintry repose and sleeps under layers of deep snow, 
then most of the bird tribe fly to the South, there to perform the 
same duties ; whilst those which remain all the year round in one 
place gather up the larva", the eggs, the nests of insects, the few 
flies or spiders which may be tempted out of their holes by a 
sun-ray, and the Coleoptera which gnaw the barks of trees. 
In these days it would almost appear as if the great and 
important services rendered by birds were insufficient for the 
purpose ; for complaints are heard from Germany and Switzer- 
land that they are invaded by swarms of those varieties of 
destructive insects which are habitually seen in small numbers 
only. They lay waste green meadows, vegetable-gardens, crops 
of wheat or flax, fruit-trees, and forests ; they torment alike 
animals and men, take us by surprise, and destroy our prospects. 
Amongst the beetles, the cockchafer is our most declared 
enemy. When in its last stage of development it destroys the 
blossoms and leaves of trees ; but, still more dangerous in its 
larva state, it gnaws the roots of plants, and, appearing in 
alarming masses, often devastates Avhole countries. This beetle 
might be made of use, in more ways than one. In the first 
place, its carcass is an active manure, a good food for fowls, or, 
if well dried, even for cows, whose milk it will then increase. 
