Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/255

Rh. have accomplished much. Public feeling was and is strong, and, backed by indifferent legislation, it has so far checked destruction that many species have benefited. Here comes an anticlimax: some of the species, actively or passively protected, have increased so enormously that they have exceeded the natural limits, overweighed the balance, and it is questionable whether further protection is or is not desirable. The æsthetic and humanitarian school are shocked at any suggestion of relaxation; the economic and scientific are in doubt, the first because personal interests are affected, the second because of the uncertainty of interference with nature's balance.

The world is a big place, but it is a very varied one; its inhabitants, whether human or otherwise, are unevenly distributed. Vast tracts are sparsely populated. others are sadly congested, but there is reason for the irregularity. The unpopulated areas are unfit, at any rate during a portion of the year, for a crowded population; the congested areas are the ones where food is obtainable. When we exclude from our thoughts colonising man, who has the power to some extent of altering the whole face of a country, we see that the lower forms must either remain in or travel to and from the best food-supplying districts or perish. Britain is a typically crowded area, and is so well stocked with various forms of life that we may treat it as a fair example of a food area. It supplies just the necessary amount of food to make life endurable for just that number of creatures which it can support; in other words, there are enough and not too many of each form existing within its bounds, and this required number depends entirely upon the seasonal supply of vegetable food, and the balanced and regular supply of animal food which depends upon the vegetation. Any shortage, due to climatic variation, of the vegetable food supply is immediately followed by famine, which means not only famine