EXCLUSION OF QUADRUPEDS. O80 
, the terminal buds and the tender branches, thereby stunting, if 
they do not kill, the young trees, and depriving them of all 
beauty and vigor of growth. 
as more injurious to the growth of young frees, and, therefore, to the repro- 
duction of the forest, than almost any other destructive cause. According 
to Beatson’s Saint Helena, introductory chapter, and Darwin’s Journal of Re- 
searches in Geology and Natural History, pp. 582, 583, it was the goats which 
destroyed the beautiful forests that, three hundred and fifty years ago, cov- 
ered a continuous surface of not less than two thousand acres in the interior 
of the island [of St. Helena], not to mention scattered groups of trees. Dar- 
win observes: ‘‘ During our stay at Valparaiso, I was most positively assured 
that sandal-wood formerly grew in abundance on the island of Juan Fernan- 
dez, but that this tree had now become entirely extinct there, having been 
extirpated by the goats which early navigators had introduced. The neigh- 
boring islands, to which goats have not been carried, still abound in sandal- 
wood.” 
In the winter, the deer tribe, especially the great American moose-deer, 
subsists much on the buds and young sprouts of trees; yet—though from the 
destruction of the wolves or from some not easily explained cause, these latter 
animals have recently multiplied so rapidly in some parts of North America, 
that, not long since, four hundred of them are said to have been killed, in one 
season, on a territory in Maine not comprising more than one hundred and 
fifty square miles—the wild browsing quadrupeds are rarely, if ever, numerous 
enough in regions uninhabited by man to produce any sensible effect on the 
condition of the forest. A reason why they are less injurious than the goat 
to young trees may be that they resort to this nutriment only in the winter, 
when the grasses and shrubs are leafless or covered with snow, whereas the 
goat feeds upon buds and young shoots principally in the season of growth. 
However this may be, the natural law of consumption and supply keeps the 
forest growth, and the wild animals which live on its products, in such a 
state of equilibrium as to insure the indefinite continuance of both, and the 
perpetuity of neither is endangered until man interferes and destroys the 
balance. 
When, however, deer are bred and protected in parks, they multiply like 
domestic cattle, and become equally injurious to trees. ‘‘ A few years ago,” 
says Clavé, ‘* there were not less than two thousand deer of different ages in 
the forest of Fontainebleau. For want of grass, they are driven to the trees, 
and they do not spare them. . . It is calculated that the browsing of these 
animals, and the consequent retardation of the growth of the wood, dimin- 
ishes the annual product of the forest to the amount of two hundred thou- 
sand cubic feet per year, . . and besides this, the trees thus mutilated 
are soon exhausted and die. The deer attack the pines, too, tearing off the 
bark in long strips, or rubbing their heads against them when shedding their 
