1 877.] 
The Balance of Nature. 
*53 
pheasant or the partridge ; what is to be the verdict ? One 
man — thinking the food of the majority of the nation and 
the prosperity of our farmers a matter of greater importance 
than the production of costly delicacies, and than the 
amusements of a small minority — may vote for an acquittal. 
Others, such as Mr. Morant, may take the opposite view. 
It is certain, indeed, that Waterton may have been some- 
what too lenient, and have overshot the mark, in his general 
protection of birds. It is the common, perhaps the inevi- 
table, error of the reformer combatting some wide-spread 
and old-established error, that he goes too far; but he is 
doubtless much nearer the truth than any of his gainsayers, 
past or present. 
The strangest view of man’s proper policy towards the 
lower animals has been put forward by Mr. Morant. This 
author has certainly some points of resemblance with 
Waterton. He has travelled extensively ; he has “ pursued 
and collected birds over a great part of India, and for some 
years in South Africa.” Hence he may, perhaps, be regarded 
as a compound of sportsman and naturalist ; the latter, 
however, in a somewhat homoeopathic proportion. He is 
also a teleologist. Thus he tells us that — “ Most animals’ 
powers of reproduction are so great, evidently with a view of 
directly or indirectly affording food to man, that but for some 
such check* before the appearance of man upon the scene 
they would have crowded each other out, and have died 
miserably of starvation.” Without any further examination 
of the logic of this passage we will call attention to the 
words we have italicised. Amazing fecundity is certainly no 
especial attribute of species which contribute to the support 
of man. It is possessed to a fearful degree by the rat and 
the mouse, the locust and mole-cricket, the crane-fly, the 
ant, the aphis, the turnip-fly, the phylloxera, and the Colo- 
rado potato-beetle. Were anyone disposed to take a 
pessimist view of creation, and give a theory of the rapid 
increase of animals exactly opposite to that of Mr. Morant, 
he could not be easily refuted. Like Waterton, our author 
is fully convinced of the injury done to our fields and gardens 
by the ravages of inserts. In support of this view — which, 
indeed, no competent authority will for a moment feel in- 
clined to question — he appeals to the evidence given before 
a certain “ SeleCt Committee appointed in 1873 to inquire 
into the advisability of extending the protection of a close 
season to certain wild birds not included in the Wild Birds’ 
* I.e ., the existence of carnivorous creatures. 
