372 EXCLUSioisr of quadrupeds. 



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. 



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 wUd animals which live on its products, in such a 

 state of equilibrium as to insure the indefinite continuance of both, and tho 

 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 Clave, " 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 horns ; 

 and sometimes, in groves of more than a hundred hectares, not one pine is 

 found uninjured by them." — Revue des Deux Mondes, Mai, 1863, p. 157. 



Vaupell, though agreeing with other wiiters as to the injury done to the for- 

 est by most domestic animals and by half -tamed deer — which he illustrates in 

 an interesting way in his posthumous work, The Danish Woods — thinks, never- 

 theless, that at the season when the mast is falling, swine are rather useful 

 than otherwise to forests of beech and oak, by treading into the ground and 

 thus sowing beechnuts and acorns, and by destroying moles and mice. — De 

 DansJce Skove, p. 12. Meguscher is of the same opinion, and adds that swine 

 destroy injurious insects and their larvae. — Memoria, etc., p. 233. 



Beckstein computes that a park of 2,500 acres, containing 250 acres of marsh, 

 250 of fields and meadows, and the remaining 2,000 of wood, may keep 3G4 

 deer of different species, 47 wild boars, 200 hares, 100 rabbits, and an indefi- 

 nite number of pheasants. These animals would require, in winter, 123,000 

 pounds of hay, and 22,000 pounds of potatoes, besides what they would pick 

 up themselves. The natural forest most thickly peopled with wild animals 

 would not, in temperate climates, contain, upon the average, one-tenth of these 

 numbers to the same extent of surface. 



