1 877-] 
The Balance of Nature. 
I5r 
colonists, &c., destroy the wild birds upon very insufficient 
evidence, and then make, too late, the unpleasant discovery 
that they have been extirpating their best friends. Thus, 
as Waterton tells us, “ the North-American colonists got 
the notion into their heads that the purple grakle was a 
great consumer of their maize, and these wise men of the 
west actually offered a reward of threepence for the killed 
dozen of the plunderers. This tempting boon soon caused 
the country to be thinned of grakles, and then myriads of 
inserts appeared, to put the good people in mind of the 
former plagues of Egypt. They damaged the grass to such 
a fearful extent that in 1749 the rash colonists were obliged 
to procure hay from Pennsylvania, and even from England. 
Buffon mentions that grakjes were brought from India to 
Bourbon to exterminate the grasshoppers. The colonists, 
seeing these birds busy in the new-sown fields, fancied that 
they were searching for grain, and instantly gave the alarm. 
The poor grakles were proscribed by Government, and in 
two hours after the sentence was passed not a grakle re- 
mained in the island. The grasshoppers again got the 
ascendancy, and then the deluded islanders began to mourn 
for the loss of their grakles. The governor procured four of 
these birds from India, about eight years after their pro- 
scription, and the State took charge of their preservation.” 
The random destruction of wild birds has occasioned most 
serious results in France. Till a quite recent date every 
species of bird in that country was subject to persecution. 
The robin and the swallow were shot and eaten as eagerly 
as the quail or the ortolan. To make matters worse, our 
contingent of swallows take the route through France on 
their southward flight in the autumn, and are too often 
intercepted on their way. The Italians, in like manner, 
prey upon birds of passage, to the great detriment of the 
German and Swiss farmers. It is even intimated that nego- 
ciations on this subject have been begun between the German 
and the Italian Governments. The consequence of this 
reckless assassination of small insectivorous birds has been 
a frightful increase of caterpillars, aphides, cockchafers, 
weevils, and other inseCt scourges of the farm and the 
garden. Worse still, blood-sucking flies have multiplied, 
whose bite is sometimes followed by carbuncle, and even 
proves mortal — possibly in cases when the fly has been pre- 
viously feasting upon carrion in some particular stage of 
decomposition. The French have therefore perceived the 
error of their ways. Not only have laws been enaCted to 
restrain the murderous propensities of misguided sportsmen, 
