THE NATIONAL MENACE.

Forest and Bird, Issue 28, 1 October 1932, Page 13

THE NATIONAL MENACE.

Quite the most obvious of all the laws of nature is the one that requires all living organisms to consume food in one form or another to enable them to survive and multiply. This food as a general rule consists of other living organisms. Plant life alone is able to obtain sustenance directly from the chemical elements of the soil. Deer, for instance, relish as food the blades of grass; but the wolf and certain other carnivorous beasts equally relish the flesh of the deer. And it is fortunate for the welfare of the grazing race that this is so. Without a host of deadly enemies, —including disease, climatical alterations, and the elements, as well as living creatures —deer theoretically would multiply at such a rapid rate that the North American continent would be over-run within a few decades. The soil could not produce sufficient

fodder for their needs; the verdure would be grazed to death. As a result, the deer would starve; the species would die out, exterminated by its own prolificacy. One of the chief instruments chosen by nature to combat this excessive production is the carnivore; and the deer, however paradoxical it may sound, is really saved by its most feared and

deadly enemies. The Balance of Nature is maintained, and it is this Balance which permits the world to carry on where otherwise it would choke itself to death. —“The Importance of Bird Life.”