DAMAGE TO FORESTS. 143 



the remaining trees. Man shoots them down on all occasions, 

 forgetting or ignoring the fact that he himself was the first 

 disturber of nature's laws. 



Mr. Hancock considers that the stunted and bushy trees 

 which I described to him will prove, in all probability, to be 

 the work of a small beetle or weevil (before mentioned) which 

 eats into the buds. Its work cannot be confounded (as already 

 shown by Mr. Dunn) with what the Capercaillies do : " The 

 latter cut the bud quite off, whilst the former leaves the dead 

 buds attached to the stems." 



" There seems to be no doubt but that the usual planta- 

 tion plant is decidedly inferior to the native, and it is sup- 

 posed that the seed is not pure according to some authorities 

 I have consulted having been taken from plantation-trees 

 which are not true Scots fir, but hybrids between the latter 

 and some other of the family, or else that it is foreign seed of 

 an inferior strain. 



"It is certain that the Scots fir of modern plantations is an 

 inferior plant. How much this may be due to uncongenial 

 soil and injudicious treatment, not being an adept in forestry, 

 I know not." (Dr. Buchanan White in lit.) 



Although Capercaillies are said by Mr. Dunn only to 

 attack healthy trees, I am not sure that beetles of the Hylurgus 

 tribes may not be induced to confine their operations to 

 the inferior strain of trees above mentioned. It is notorious 

 that many parasitical insects are more apt to attack bodies 

 which are in an unhealthy state than those which are healthy, 

 and we have no stronger proof of this than in the presence of 

 certain parasites in the human body. 



Whether these insects attack all trees alike, healthy and 

 unhealthy, native or imported, sound strain or unsound strain, 

 indigenous old Scotch pine, as at Eannoch, or the younger 

 growths, is more a question for the arboriculturist and ento- 

 mologist than for an ornithologist, though other questions 



