All those insects mentioned here have so arranged their life histories that they come into existence exactly at the proper season. The warmth of the sun, which opens the apple buds ever so slightly, stirs also the egg of the mite, the egg of the beetle, or the hibernating weevil, so that all these insect populations come into full active life just when they can do the most damage. But one must not stop there; the bird population is also ready, and is building its nests and feeding its young, just so soon as the insect swarms are at their thickest and most dangerous stage. Man walks clumsily through this intricate tangle of living plants and animals: he sets his big foot on a hedgehog (good for the insects), or on a mole (so much the better for wireworm), collects plovers' eggs (to the great help of every insect), shoots an owl (to the delight of voles and mice) or a whole brood of partridges, and in other ways makes a---- we had better say, shows that he is not so clever as he supposes himself to be. CHAPTER XXIV RUBBER, HEMP, AND OPIUM Effects of opium--The poppy-plant and its latex--Work of the opium-gatherer--Where the opium poppy is grown--Haschisch of the Count of Monte Cristo--Heckling, scotching, and retting--Hempseed and bhang--Users of haschisch--Use of india-rubber--Why plants produce rubber--With the Indians in Nicaragua--The Congo Free State--Scarcity of rubber--Columbus and Torquemada--Macintosh--Gutta-percha. Supposing that in China or Japan you meet a native who shows the following symptoms:-- (1) Eyes hollow and surrounded by a bluish margin; (2) pupils much dilated; (3) with a stupid appearance; (4) with an emaciated body; (5) of unsteady and staggering walk; (6) with a dreamy disposition;--then, you may be sure that he is an opium-smoker. In some of the Chinese provinces every man smokes ·03 to ·07 ounce of opium daily, but those who indulge to excess consume ·3 or even ·6 ounce. It is an excellent medicine when employed in a lawful and justifiable manner, for it calms the spirits and makes one sleep. But its use is _always_ dangerous, even when employed in very small quantity, as in laudanum and morphia. In the Fen country in England there used to be a very large sale of laudanum pills which keep off asthma and rheumatism, but even there it is a dangerous remedy, for it is only too easy to fall under the control of this drug either by injection of morphia, or by eating or smoking laudanum or morphia. De Quincey's _Confessions of an Opium-eater_ and Kipling's _Gate of the Hundred Sorrows_ give a lurid picture of the ruin of body and soul brought about by opium.