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Life and Death and Life
生命、死亡、生命
Edgar M. Reilly, Jr.
小埃德加oM o赖利
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.
每一天，每一瞬间，都经历着某种生命的死亡。我们知道，出于天然本能，各种动植物生产出的卵、籽、幼畜、幼苗，远远超出了维持自身数量的需要。这是因为，任何一种物种对存活都没有很大的把握。再者，死亡是生命存活必需的，死亡率必须与出生率大致持平。如果生命过程中所创造出来的全部卵、籽都存活至成年或成熟期，那就没有一种生物能在这种过分拥挤的环境中继续生存。
A pair of American robins nest in one backyard raising two brood of four each. Ten robins 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!
一对美洲知更鸟在一家后院筑巢孵下两窝雏鸟，一窝4只，本来是两只鸟，现在成了10只鸟。这些鸟在再成双结对，每年冋来成功地孵育同样多的雏鸟。无论谁多么喜欢知更鸟，10年后一个院子里的知更鸟的数量超过9千万只，那也实在太多了。再说也不会有足够的虫子来养活它们。
