INTRODUCTION 



for the latter is a small area whose game 

 nearly all comes from the surrounding terri- 

 tory of the Republic. If no game or no wild 

 animals of any account are left there, there 

 will be none in the Canal Zone either. 



NEED OF BIRD SANCTUARIES AND 

 RESERVATIONS 



Many of the native birds are inhabitants 

 of the old growth forest and cannot live in 

 other surroundings, and when the large trees 

 are cut, they desert the locality permanently. 

 They require, or at least strongly prefer, the 

 tall trees and deep shade of such woods, and 

 many of them breed in hollows in trees which 

 they can rarely find of suitable size and char- 

 acter in the second growth vegetation that 

 replaces the old forest when it is destroyed. 

 Contrary to the common belief, the primeval 

 forest does not reproduce, itself after its de- 

 struction, at least not within a period of many 

 centuries. A scrubby growth of dense jungle 

 does immediately spring up, which in time 

 may develop into a forest of some size and 

 height, but the trees are of different kinds for 

 the most part from those characteristic of 

 the old forest, and they are of course young 

 and without the heavy trunks and branches 

 with roomy cavities and the abundant growth 

 of leaves and parasitic plants that character- 

 ize the trees many centuries old, of the prime- 

 val woods and make them so well adapted 

 to the needs of forest birds and animals. 

 Probably in the course of centuries, the new 

 growth would approximate in character to 



xviii 



