EPIZOOTY 306 



they have been living at some time or other. It 

 sometimes happens that trees of a certain species 

 will perish in a district all in the same season, though 

 no difference between that and other seasons can be 

 observed. One year all the specimens of the dark- 

 leaved American beech in the plantations Of a dis- 

 trict in Scotland died simultaneously, while there 

 was no apparent injury to trees of any other kind. 

 Seals have also in some seasons been observed 

 floating dead on the sea in incredible numbers ; and 

 their dead bodies were so thickly strewed on some 

 parts of the north coast of Scotland and the northern 

 islands that they tainted the air. Many analogous 

 instances of mortality in particular tribes, for which 

 no cause could be, or at least has been, assigned, are 

 recorded; and because nothing is known of the 

 means by which they are produced, those mortali- 

 ties are, in the case of animals, called EPIZOOTY, that 

 is, "on the life ;" because they, as it were, fall on 

 the life itself, without any apparent derangement of 

 the organization, or other disease of which the 

 symptoms can be observed. 



But there is also a gradual wasting away of races, 

 with just as little apparent cause ; though that must 

 not be considered as extending to all cases in which 

 tribes diminish in a country. The wolf is now ex- 

 tinct in the British isles, and the eagle is rare, ex- 

 cepting in the very wildest districts ; both of these 

 have been hunted, and besides that, lonely places 

 are their natural haunts. Heath, too, has dimin- 

 ished upon the uplands, and rushes by the swamps ; 

 but that has been before the plough. 



One of the most remarkable instances of gradual 

 decay which has taken place in these islands is that 

 of the forests, more especially the pine forests. It 

 has been said that these have been cut down, or set 

 on fire by invading armies, or gradually consumed 

 by the workman's axe in times of peace. But though 

 reasons such as these satisfy those persons who 

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