88 
A NATURALIST ON THE PROWL. 
carry out this great work there must be workmen, and 
millions upon millions there are, working as silently and 
as ceaselessly as the trees. 
You may think that the little beetles are insignificant 
and their labours not to be taken into account. But they 
are not insignificant. They are small, but they are strong 
in their numbers, and wherever I wander, I see proof that 
they are sufficient for all the work that there is to be done 
in their own line. 
Of course there are other departments, and each has 
its own staff. When the old tree falls, there are 
wood-boring beetles, with their strong jaws, ready to 
bore it through and through and turn it into powder. If 
a field-rat dies, there are beetles at hand to dig its grave 
and say, “ Dust to dust.” The leaves are entrusted to the 
earthworms which we see drawing their lean length out of 
every clod that we turn up in our gardens. And from the 
beginning of the world till now we have been content to 
believe that these creatures were without use, unsightly 
superfluities in the order of nature. But Darwin came, 
with eyes to see, and lo ! they are not superfluities at all, 
but quite indispensable, a countless gang of laborious 
workmen, appointed to take the dead leaves to the place 
