12 THE WOODLANDS. 



for example, those which bore into the trunks of 

 coniferous trees, or eat off their buds, as has been 

 done by the larvae of a little beetle (Bostrichus), and 

 of a moth, in the Hartz Forests. 



It is well known to entomologists of our own country 

 how the great reduction or extirpation of a food- 

 plant has resulted in the disappearance of the insect 

 which fed upon it. In a similar manner that the 

 reclamation of fenny districts has caused many insects 

 almost entirely to disappear. 



Next in importance to the insect world in the 

 forests is the feathered tribe. The climbing-birds, 

 especially fitted by the structure of their feet to live 

 upon trees, are particularly numerous among the 

 winged inhabitants of forests ; in the tropics it is the 

 parrots, in the temperate zone it is the woodpeckers, 

 who are the chief of the climbers which inhabit the 

 woods ; the grubs, which they find in the trunks of 

 the trees, forming their food ; but very many of the 

 family of the song-birds have their home here. 



Reptiles are less abundant, and less connected with 

 the forests. Just as the birds have a peculiar forest- 

 family in the parrots, so also the mammals have one 

 in the monkeys. Among other animals in temperate 

 countries are smaller beasts of prey. Lastly, the 

 human race ; we see that nations in the lowest stage of 

 development are sometimes closely connected with 

 forests. At length civilization comes into hostile 

 contact with the forests, and thus, other conditions 

 being equal, the country in which civilization is oldest 

 possesses the fewest woods. Forests are more spar- 

 ingly met with in the countries of the Mediterranean 



