96 PROTECTION OF WOODLANDS. 



strength ; where the game consists only of roe-deer and hares, the 

 seedling beds of broad-leaved species and Silver Fir will at any- 

 rate need protection. But where the head of game of the latter 

 kinds is comparatively small, poles laid across the beds, or feathers 

 or rags hung on strings, are often all that is necessary to keep 

 them off. For rabbits, a thick, close fence is necessary. Broad- 

 leaved seedlings that have been gnawed round about by hares or 

 rabbits should be cut back to the root ; but fruit-trees and the more 

 valuable species require to be protected against their attacks by 

 binding thorns or rough brushwood round the stems. 



51. Damage done "by Red-deer in Stripping the Bark. 



The peeling of the Eind of young smooth -barked species of 

 broad-leaved and coniferous poles by red-deer, as previously 

 remarked, fallow-deer only do this exceptionally, in parks where 

 a large head of game is maintained, either takes place in winter 

 in the shape of gnawing the bark at about the height of the 

 animal's head, or higher when there is much snow on the ground, 

 (in which case the marks of the teeth are plainly apparent on the 

 damaged stems, with narrow lines of bark and cambium between 

 the indentations), or else it occurs in spring and summer, when the 

 sap is in flow. In this summer-stripping the deer bite through 

 the bark at whatever height their head may happen to be, ai 

 then, holding it firmly between their teeth and moving back at tl 

 same time, tear or strip off huge portions of the rind, occasional] 

 more than half the circumference of the stem in breadth, whicl 

 gradually becoming narrower and more wedge-shaped, at last pai 

 from the stem, often at a considerable height, and is then coi 

 pletely devoured by the deer. Naturally, these injuries inflict* 

 by barking the poles in summer do far more permanent danii 

 than the comparatively slight injuries inflicted by gnawing duri] 

 winter. 



This fact was first mentioned in German forest literature aboi 

 the middle of last century with reference to the Spruce forests 

 the Harz Mountains. But it has gradually gained in importai 

 down to the present, and in many localities, especially in deer-parl 

 it has assumed such proportions as most materially to reduce tl 

 outturn from Spruce woods, which suffer most in this way. The 

 reason for bark-peeling in winter is doubtless, for the most par 



