THE BALANCE OF NATURE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 794, 16 November 1882, Page 2

THE BALANCE OF NATURE.

[“ THE FIELD.’’] It sounds strange, in these days of wild birds protection by statute, to read from certain districts reports of the successes during the past season of local sparrow and rook clubs. It is not as if the political bias of those who organise these societies was of an opposite tendency to that of persons who supported measures for the protection of wild birds in the breeding season. The views of the farmer as a rule in a conservative direction, and so also are the Acts just alluded to. Fifty years ago the farmer was even more conservative than he now is, and yet he in those days was keen to wage war against the rook and sparrow, as the reputed natural enemies of his calling. It is almost needless to state that the researches of naturalists have long ago exposed the fallacy of supposing that either rooks or sparrows do damage to the farmer at all commensurate with one-tenth of the benefit they confer on him, by preying upon insects and caterpillars during the period when.crops are not in a state to invite their attack. Practical experience and experiment have proved over and over again that, in districts where certain species of birds have been exterminated, the crops have suffered to a far larger extent from the attacks of insects ; and though in harvest season they may have been freer from depredations of birds, the amount of produce that has been destroyed by beetle and caterpillar is much greater than any which would have been plundered by the birds. They lived first to protect the crops in their growth, and afterwards to eat of the fruits of their labors. The fallacy of supposing that destruction of such birds meant protection of crops, was a natural one for the bucolic mind to entertain in the first instance ; but in the face of later recorded experiences, and of the march of education, it might have been supposed that agriculturalists en masse would in this country have recanted the error, and have been only too glad to encourage their own protectors. And yet we read in more than cne local journal of the proceedings ot these clubs, the reports of their secretaries of the result of the operations of slaughter during the past year, and self-gratulation on the results. The reason why the rook is looked upon with suspicion by farmers is on account of his operations on young wheat, and the ocular evidence that he digs up a certain number of young plants where at work on a field of this sort. It is naturally assumed that he is operating as a depredator. A little careful examination of the plants which he has uprooted will show that each has been attacked by the wireworm, or some other larva;, and that these, and not the wheat plant, have been the objects of the rook’s search. It is evident that he selects his plants, and that he does not uproot one patch in entirety before proceeding to another part of the field. This fact alone might suggest that his motive was something different from a direct attack on the wheat itself; but it it required further confirmation it will be found in examination of the uprooted plants, and still more if he is scared away just as he has turned up one plant, and that is at once inspected, the actual wireworm may be found for which the rook has been searching. Similar evidence of the benefit of the rook’s operations may be found in a turnip field, especially when the turnip plant is young The sparrow does not disclose such palpable evidences of useful work, but his value, like that of many another blessing, is best appreciated when he is absent from the district, and when, in place of him, all sorts of insect pests prey upon the crops. That both rook and sparrow should, during the week or two when grain is ripening, be tempted to prey upon it, is intelligible ; but the cost of “ lenting ” a ripening

corn field isiiyery small compared to the loss of crop whiclf ensues when the protection of these birds is removed for the whole of the earlier part of the season. The' farmer himself would he the first to deride a suggestion that sheepdogs should be because they might now and then be tempted to help themselves to a bone, or even a joint, = when the stock had 4>een converted into mutton. One reason for the crusade against rooks and sparrows being still maintained, and even revived of late, is that the wood pigeon is really mischievous, without giving a satisfactory quid p>o quo to the farmer. He will eat his own weight of food, over and over again, in a week, and will take it from the crops themselves

for choice, rather than the pests which prey upon them. It really pays to kill down these birds in the interests of agriculture; and the idea of a crusade against birds of some sort being once inaugurated, it becomes more difficult for the bucolic mind to discriminate in the matter of slaughter. The wood pigeon is more of a pest than he was, because of the decimation of birds of prey, owing to game preservation. The balance of power of nature would tend to keep the wood pigeon in due bounds; but while the same causes that protect game from feathered assailants, protect also the pigeon, the latter is not annually thinned in the cause of sport, like the partridge and pheasant. He is in danger of becoming to English agriculture something like what the rabbit is in Australia. The latter animal was thoughtlessly introduced without calculating that he had not m that country

to contend against the same enemies, in the shape of vermin, that lie has to meet in England; hence .he has overgrown his quarters, and has become an actual pest. Even the sparrow has become a complete pest in America and Australia; but here again the same doctrine of balance, or rather the want of balance, in nature crops up. In this country the sparrow has his own functions to perform as A consumer of smaller animal life, and to be in turn food for carnivorous birds more powerful than himself. While the two rounds of the ladder of destruction exist on each side of him, he does more good than harm; but when he is transplanted to a new country, in which no natural provision has been made either for his sustenance ; or his decimation, he becomes possibly an anomaly,• and then demands artificial sustenance in the shape of the artificial productions of agriculture. There may be insect life which requires destruction

in his new home ; but if it is of a different character to That,,which his natural instincts have impelled him to seek, it is intelligible that, with a choice of new food before him, he may unfortunately select that which he was not intended to consume. And, in addition to this, the absence of birds of prey, such as cruelly decimate his tribe in his mother country, tends to increase his numbers, and to make him still more dependent on artificial supplies, of food. The partial failure of the sparrow as an agricultural ally in America and Australia should be held as evidence, not of mischief on his part in his Own mothet country, but rather of that general principle of the balance of nature, which man cannot safely disturb in one part without doing himself even more injury in another. If man is prepared completely to reorganise creation in the entire scale of the chain of destruction, he may perhaps be able to arrange it to his own satisfaction and benefit. But if he seeks to strike out one link only, or to introduce a solitary new link in a place unsuited for it, he must not be surprised if he finds in the end that his tinkering cannot compare to the organisation of Nature.