256 FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 
Lieutenants de Lowveterie (Wolf-hunters). These officers, who 
are unpaid, but have the right to wear a handsome uniform, are 
under the control of the Conservator of Forests, and are appointed 
by the Prefect, on his recommendation. They are, as a rule, landed 
proprietors, who accept their appointment for the sake of the sport 
it affords them. They are obliged to keep bloodhounds and packs 
of dogs, and are charged to organise and direct, in communication 
with the local forest officers, the battwes which are, from time to 
time, ordered to take place in the forests. But as this system has 
not been found a very eflicient one, a law has recently been passed 
under which a reward, varying from £1, 12s. to £7, is payable to 
any one who kills a wolf ; and the mayors are authorised, when the 
snow is on the ground, to organise battwes for the destruction of 
wolves, boars, and other animals, anywhere within the limits of their 
respective communes, on condition only that they give due notice to 
the proprietors of the land on which the beat is to take place. The 
rewards paid for killing wolves amount to about £4000 a year. 
CHAPTER III. 
AFFORESTATION WORKS. 
Works UNDERTAKEN FOR THE CoNSOLIDATION AND PROTECTION OF 
UNSTABLE MounrtvAIN SLOPES. 
Excessive grazing, both by local herds and flocks principally 
of sheep and goats, as well as by vast numbers of these 
animals which are annually driven up from the plains to the hill 
pastures, have produced complete denudation over very large areas ; 
and have thus caused incalculable damage in the great mountain 
regions of France, principally in the southern Alps, and in the 
level country below them. They eat down the grass to the level 
of the ground, and then tear out the very roots, breaking up the 
surface of the soil, and rendering it liable to be washed down by 
the rain. These hills are of a loose formation, the strata being 
contorted and dislocated to a remarkable degree, and as soon as 
the soil is deprived of its protective covering of trees, shrubs, 
and herbs, whose roots held it together, the slipping and falling 
