CHAPTER XVII 



VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL 



BETWIXT the vegetable and animal worlds there is, 

 always and everywhere, a very close connection. 



One finds in the history of nations many examples 

 of the effect that forests have had upon their history. 

 In the time of Charles the Great, for example, the 

 boundary of German and Slav in Europe coincided with 

 the limits of the pine forest. The Germans possessed 

 cattle and so required oak or other deciduous woods, 

 leaving the great pine forests to the Slav. 1 The early 

 history of Britain was much influenced by the great 

 forests of the Sussex weald and of central England, 

 which remained a safe refuge for outlaws and masterless 

 men until well into the middle ages.* 



Man has, of course, transformed and entirely altered 

 the world's vegetation in all civilised countries and even 

 in others, for the most savage tribes burn the woods. 

 Even the distribution of plants in the Alps is altered by 

 human agency, for the different habits and customs of 

 Italian and German peasants have produced quite a 

 different attitude for many of the flowering plants on 

 the different sides of those mountains. 



As of course every one knows, all animals live upon 

 some sort of vegetable food, either directly or indirectly. 



Plants try to protect themselves against being de- 

 voured by all sorts of ingenious contrivances, such as 

 thorns and spines, bitter or poisonous secretions, milky 

 juice or latex, and the like. 



* See ''Romance of Early British Life." 



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