Many practical illustrations of this rapid tendency to increase are on record, namely during peculiar seasons, in the extraordinary increase of certain animals, for instance during the years 1826 to 1828, in La Plata, when from drought, some millions of cattle perished, the whole country _swarmed_ with innumerable mice: now I think it cannot be doubted that during the breeding season all the mice (with the exception of a few males or females in excess) ordinarily pair; and therefore that this astounding increase during three years must be attributed to a greater than usual number surviving the first year, and then breeding, and so on, till the third year, when their numbers were brought down to their usual limits on the return of wet weather. Where man has introduced plants and animals into a new country favourable to them, there are many accounts in how surprisingly few years the whole country has become stocked with them. This increase would necessarily stop as soon as the country was fully stocked; and yet we have every reason to believe from what is known of wild animals that _all_ would pair in the spring. In the majority of cases it is most difficult to imagine where the check falls, generally no doubt on the seeds, eggs, and young; but when we remember how impossible even in mankind (so much better known than any other animal) it is to infer from repeated casual observations what the average of life is, or to discover how different the percentage of deaths to the births in different countries, we ought to feel no legitimate surprise at not seeing where the check falls in animals and plants. It should always be remembered that in most cases the checks are yearly recurrent in a small regular degree, and in an extreme degree during occasionally unusually cold, hot, dry, or wet years, according to the constitution of the being in question. Lighten any check in the smallest degree, and the geometrical power of increase in every organism will instantly increase the average numbers of the favoured species. Nature may be compared to a surface, on which rest ten thousand sharp wedges touching each other and driven inwards by incessant blows{230}. Fully to realise these views much reflection is requisite; Malthus on man should be studied; and all such cases as those of the mice in La Plata, of the cattle and horses when first turned out in S. America, of the robins by our calculation, &c., should be well considered: reflect on the enormous multiplying power _inherent and annually in action_ in all animals; reflect on the countless seeds scattered by a hundred ingenious contrivances, year after year, over the whole face of the land; and yet we have every reason to suppose that the average percentage of every one of the inhabitants of a country will _ordinarily_ remain constant. Finally, let it be borne in mind that this average number of individuals (the external conditions remaining the