132 A NATUIiALIST'S WAXDEEIXGS 



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extent, tlie lineal descendants of the vegetation that has 

 always existed on the island since it came into its present 

 condition at least. Perhaps indeed some of the aged giants 

 may have actually witnessed the young days of the present 

 geological cycle. In the virgin forest death and decay are 

 just as rapid as anywhere else ; individual trees are constantly 

 falling out of the ranks, but their place is taken by younger 

 members either of the same or of neighbouring species. 

 When, however, this ancient forest is devastated to any 

 great extent, either by natural means or by the woodcutter's 

 axe, the trees that arise belong to a different lineage, the new 

 wood is in great bulk of different species, which, strange to say, 

 were but rarely to be found in the old forest. 



As in Java the original forest is rapidly disappearing ; each 

 year sees immense tracts felled for rice fields, more than is 

 actually necessary, and also much wanton destruction by wilful 

 fires. Trees of the rarest and finest timber are hewed, half burned, 

 and then left to rot ; amid their prostrate trunks a couple of 

 harvests are reaped, then the ground is deserted, and soon fills 

 up with the fast-growing and worthless woods, or foils a prey 

 to the ineradicable alang-alang grass. Our children's children 

 will search in vain in their travels for the old forest trees of 

 which they have read in the books of their grandfathers ; 

 and to make their acquaintance, they will have to content 

 themselves with what they can glean from the treasured 

 specimens in various herbaria, which will then be the only 

 remains of the extiiict vegetable races. 



In every clearing, trees, fn>m their gigantic size, have here 

 and there escaped the axe, and been allowed to stand un- 

 molested. One cannot resist a feeling of pity for the solitude 

 of these towering monarchs, whose grandeur, concealed as they 

 stood amid the multitude of their peers, can now be seen in 

 all their stateliness. They look the very picture of strength and 

 immobility ; yet, though they have withstood, in the company 

 of their fellows, the storm and sun of centuries, they survive 

 their solitude but a very few seasons, getting feebler year by 

 year, one great limb after another dying and dropping oif, till 

 all life ceases, when some lightning flash or sudden blast 

 measures their noble stems on the ground. 



