生命死亡生命.doc

Life and Death and Life Edgar M﹒Reilly, Jr. Each moment of each day sees the death of some living thing. We know that each plant and animal, by natural tendency, produces far more seeds and eggs, and seedlings and young, than is necessary to maintain its population. This occurs because each species has an insecure hold on life. Moreover, death is necessary for the survival of life, and the death rate must just about equal the birth rate. If all the seeds and eggs created through the life processes survived and grew to adulthood there could be no life able to continue through this overcrowding. A pair of American robins nest in one backyard raising two brood of four each. Ten robin where there were two. These pair up and return to equally successful nestlings each year. No matter how much one likes robins, over 90 million birds in one yard at the end of the tenth year would be two much. And there would not be enough worms to feed them. Nature allows a seeming excess because the difficulties of life restrict survival of both young and old, and the result of this delicate balance is that population rise and fall in small numbers; only rarely do they rise to disastrous millions or fall to complete to zero. Both plants and animals may reach ages where there they are no longer able to reproduce, but usually before old age is reached sickness, storm, and slowed reactions to danger will have eliminated many individuals. Even a few strong and mature individuals die from disease or under the attacks of predators. Life is the moving, ever-aggressive force. When any form of life dies, centre life processes take over and act out the saying “waste not ,want not.” Every atom and molecule of a living plant or animal was molded by life into a form that is a certain species of life. Those very elements and compounds are needed to continue life, and nature is fairly efficient in recycling them. The controlling factor of life is really “supply and demand .” A grass eating anim