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The Phylloxera, for instance, which ruined the old and valuable vineyards in France, is a terrible little acarid, or mite, which attacks the roots. Too small to see, and impossible to kill without killing the plant, it laid waste the fertile hills and valleys of all South and Central France, causing millions of pounds damage. One reason for this destruction sprang from the universal sporting instinct innate in every Frenchman. Everybody goes out with his gun to destroy any lark, sparrow, or titmouse that is idiotic enough to remain in the country. Only birds can deal efficiently with insect pests. Take this horrible little Phylloxera, for instance; a single female in her life of forty-five days will lay about two hundred eggs. Each egg becomes a little grub, which after a few moments of uncertainty and agitation settles itself, and begins to suck steadily at any unoccupied part of the vine root. After ten to twelve days' life it will be laying eggs as rapidly as its mother. Thus in an ordinary summer the number of young ones produced from a single female becomes quite incalculable.