INTRODUCTION 



The term ' forest ' has always had for me a strange 

 fascination. Dr. Johnson defines a forest as ' a wild, 

 uncultivated tract of ground interspersed with trees.' 

 Italians still call strangers generally forestieri, conveying 

 the idea that all outside the pale of civilization is forest. 

 The Great Hercynian Forest, covering half of Northern 

 Europe, was to the Romans an unknown region of mon- 

 strous import. Travellers in Central Africa have scarcely 

 yet penetrated the great Forest, where strange types of 

 men and apes of terrible proportions have been seen by a 

 few. The human race seems actually to have sprung into 

 existence as a forest animal, and the earliest instincts of 

 mankind are now represented by the almost universal 

 love of the chase. Romantic tales like that of Robin 

 Hood and his Foresters bold are still cherished in most 

 civilized countries. In England men still cling to the 

 traditions of foresters, and in Germany they reverence 

 ' the gray and the green.' In India the term ' jungle ' 

 has a similarly wide and uncertain meaning, not 

 necessarily implying trees any more than the Scotch 

 ' deer forest,' but signifying a region where savage animals 

 dwell, and where wild men exist. I have been asked a 

 hundred times what a Forest Officer in India does when 

 engaged in his forest duties. People generally seem to 

 look on the forests there very much as the Italians must 

 have done — as unknown to civilized mankind. 



