NOTES ON CONTINENTAL FORESTRY. 169 



because these latter attack all kinds of leaves, though showing 

 plainly preferences for certain kinds, and that to earth-worms is 

 certainly due the rapid disappearance of dead . hornbeam leaves, 

 even where this tree forms the main portion of the crop. But 

 Professor Henry thinks that, in the fixation of atmospheric 

 nitrogen by the dead layer of foliage, various lowly plants are 

 active (especially algae, lichens, and mosses), as well as the 

 special bacteria, of which only a small number are yet known 

 ( Clostridium, Granu/obacter, Azotobacter). 



Here and there r-abbits are destructive, as they appear to have 

 been as early as before the Revolution of 1789, and a new 

 enemy (in France) to the silver fir has appeared (in Auvergne) 

 in the shape of a geometric moth, either Boarmia crepusadaria 

 or B. consoiiaria, unless it prove an entirely new species. In 

 1902 the caterpillars appeared and attacked a small 500-acre 

 isolated block of silver fir, damaging about half an acre ; but no 

 particular notice was taken of them, and in the following spring 

 they completely defoliated about 125 acres; then in 1904 they 

 again reappeared and stripped 250 acres, making the part infested 

 as bare and black "as if fire had passed through it." Fortunately 

 it is a moth that can easily be combated, because the caterpillars 

 spin down to the ground about the beginning of September to pupate, 

 and the chrysalides are eagerly devoured by swine and fowls, while 

 a parasitic ichneumon also soon appears to find them out. 



One would hardly have thought that as many as 87^6 wolves 

 (163 being full grown) could have been killed during the twenty 

 years 1 883-1 902, or an average of 439 annually, although in 

 iyo2 only 73 cubs or half-grown animals (and no full-grown wolf) 

 were killed. The rewards have therefore been lowered (which 

 seems a mistake, as not likely to lead to these savage brutes 

 being exterminated), and now range from i6s. 8d. per cub to 

 ;^3 per full-grown wolf, and ^4 for those attacking human 

 beings.i 



2. German v. 



The German periodicals are, of course, far richer in matter 

 of all sorts than those of any other country, as might be expected 



' Wolves are now rare in Germany. On 27th February 1904 a large male 

 wolf, known locally for several years back as the " tiger of Sabrodt," was shot 

 near Nunstadt, in Lausitz (Liegnitz). It was 5 feet long, 32 inches high, and 

 90 lbs. in weight. The last wolf known to have been seen in Scotland was 

 the one killed bv .Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, in 1680. 



