1 877-] 
The Balance of Nature. 
169 
others, we must expedt to be asked what method we recom- 
mend for finding and establishing a new and satisfactory 
balance ? To this we cannot reply in a neat prescription of 
some half-dozen lines. Much of the knowledge necessary 
for a decided and final answer has yet to be obtained. We 
can merely recommend that every case be for the present 
decided upon its own merits ; that the habits, and especially 
the diet, of all creatures be much more carefully studied 
than has yet been attempted ; and that sentence of extirpa- 
tion be not passed till the injury done by the species con- 
cerned has been proved to be greater than the benefits it 
confers. But where such proof has been furnished, then 
let there be no trifling. “ Frappez vite et frappez fort.” 
Let there be no “ chance ” given to the offending animal ; 
let no young ones be spared that some one may exercise his 
courage and his skill by shooting them down when mature ! 
A few general considerations may assist. There must be, 
of course, no mercy shown to parasites, internal or external. 
To say that these creatures “ are designed to make people 
clean ” is, as a contemporary remarks, “ simply absurd.” 
The cleaner people are the more fiercely they are attacked 
by bugs and fleas. We once passed the night in a salasche 
high up in the Carpathians, and were nearly devoured, whilst 
the filthy natives slept on unmolested. War must next be 
waged against all large Carnivora, and against all or most 
small Herbivora and Omnivora. It will be useful to take 
into consideration each separate duty or function which we 
require animals to perform ; to examine what species exe- 
cutes it in the most effectual manner and with fewest draw- 
backs, and to give that species the preference. Thus the 
fox, the mole, the hedgehog, the weasel, and the crow tribe, 
will ail destroy cockchafers. But the fox and the weasel — - 
and, in Mr. Morant’s opinion, the crows also — have so many 
vices that man may refuse to employ them as cockchafer- 
devourers, and may hand over the work to the mole and the 
hedgehog. Again, the hen harrier and the pheasant both 
prey upon wireworms ; still the pheasant is the safer work- 
man in this department, and we should accordingly give him 
the preference. 
But the greatest difficulty lies in the fadt that our animal 
allies do not spare each other. Thus several beasts and 
birds have been praised as beetle-destroyers. But among 
beetles there are multitudes inoffensive ; multitudes — as we 
have already shown — positively useful to man. But the 
weasel, the crow, and the mole devour the burying-beetle, 
the dung-beetle, the jardinier ( Carabus auratus ), just as 
