RESULTS OF FOREST FIRES. 00 



building in gardens. The golden-winged woodpecker resorts to the 

 cultivated fields, picking grubs and worms from the ground. The 

 cliff-swallow exchanges the faces of rocks for the eaves of barns and 

 houses, and the barn and chimney swallows are everywhere ready to 

 avail themselves of the accommodation afforded by buildings. The 

 Acadian or little owl makes its abode in barns during winter. The bob- 

 lincoln, the king-bird, the waxwing or cherry-bird, and the humming- 

 bird, are among the species which profit by the progress of cultivation. 

 The larger quadrupeds disappear, but the fox and ermine still prowl 

 about the cultivated grounds, and the field-mouse {^Arvicola Pennsyl- 

 vanica), which is very abundant in some parts of the woods, is equally 

 so in the fields. Many insects are vastly increased in numbers in 

 consequence of the clearing of the forests. Of this kind are the 

 grasshoppers and locusts, which, in dry seasons, are very destructive 

 to grass and grain ; the frog-spittle insects [Gercopis)^ of which several 

 species are found in the fields and gardens, and are very injurious to 

 vegetation ; and the Lepidoptera, nearly the whole of which find 

 greater abundance of food and more favourable conditions in the 

 burned barrens and cultivated fields than in the growing woods. 



It thus appears that, in the course of between two and three centuries, 

 large areas of the Acadian provinces have passed through two or more 

 of the following conditions : — 1. That of primitive forest; 2. That of 

 second-growth forest ; 3. That of the burned barren ; 4. That of 

 cultivated fields. Each of these changes is accompanied with modifi- 

 cations of the animal population ; and in primitive states of society 

 each would imply a change in the habits of the people ; and, if very 

 extensive, might even cause migrations of tribes and important changes 

 of population. In the old world, most countries have passed through 

 these vicissitudes in very early times, and have subsequently reached 

 a more stable condition, with more slow and gradual changes ; and in 

 extensive regions it has usually happened that the destruction and 

 removal of forests have been effected piecemeal, so as to extend only 

 over limited areas at one time. The case of Denmark would seem to 

 have been an exception to this.* At a very early pre-historic time it 

 seems to have been covered by forests of Scotch fir. These were 

 destroyed, probably by a great fire like that of Miramichi. The people 

 perished or were driven from the country, and were replaced by another 

 race, while the forests grew up again, but were now composed of oak. 

 Still more recently the oak forests were replaced by beech. The stages 

 of unrecorded human history connected in Denmark with.these successive 

 forests, are thus summed up by Stcenstrup and Morlot : — " Is^, A stone 

 * Lycll, "Antiquity of Man;" Lubbock, in Nat. Hist. Keview. 



