124 
IS NATURE CRUEL? 
DECADE or two ago it was the fashion to look upon 
Dame Nature and her ways as perfect. She was and 
even now is believed to be perfectly beautiful, and 
hence has arisen the argument that her ways and 
modes of dealing with the different forms of life on the Earth 
are also perfect, and that she is merciful in what she does and 
the methods she employs. 
Some people hold that it is cruel for man to take life, while 
Nature may do so how she likes and yet not be considered 
cruel. Now “ cruelty ” means the pitiless infliction of pain, 
whether of mind or body, and in that sense Nature most 
certainly is cruel. The numbers of the different forms of life 
are primarily determined by the supply of food. If the supply 
is short, famine thins their ranks. 
At the beginning of winter many of our birds have a reserve 
store of fat in their bodies with which to battle against the 
cold, and gradually lose in condition and weight as the winter 
wears along. Four or five years ago redwings were so killed 
down by severe cold that not one was to be seen about here the 
next spring ; while fieldfares, missel-thrushes, blackbirds, 
green woodpeckers, and some other birds were much reduced in 
numbers. Surely a lingering death after a hopeless struggle 
against cold and want is a cruel one. 
Then a hot, dry season such as we have experienced in late 
years claims its victims. Many creatures died of thirst in the 
summers of 1898 and 1899 hereabouts. Death by thirst is by 
no means euthanasia. 
Vast numbers of birds are lost annually in their migratory 
flights. They become caught in storms or fogs, and are thrown 
out of their course at sea. To fly about over a lonely expanse 
of ocean, losing their way from no fault of their own, until they 
become exhausted and drowned, is neither a merciful nor speedy 
end. 
Some of our English wasps lay up a store of caterpillars or 
spiders for the sustenance of their young. Their victims are not 
killed, but are so stung as to be incapable of motion or resist- 
ance. They are then packed in cells awaiting their turn to be 
devoured. 
There is a belief among some that moles lay up a store of 
worms at the beginning of winter, and I have been informed by 
several old mole-catchers that they keep them in captivity by 
biting their heads. Now and then a fresh bite is said to be 
inflicted on the poor worm to keep up the raw and thus prevent 
escape. If this habit of the mole eventually proves to be true it 
surely is another case of cruelty in Nature. 
But of all terrible lives and deaths, those to which many 
insects are liable are probably the worst. The lot of the larva of 
