328 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST 



significance of forest, a Report published by the Forestry 

 Department of the Indian Government in 1917, still indicates 

 that Marsh came near the truth. It has been found that in 

 India, forest may slightly increase the rainfall, but only to an 

 extent of not more than 5 per cent, by promoting condensa- 

 tion of aqueous vapour, by, as it were, cutting down the clouds, 

 which Richard Jefferies fondly imagined lay beyond the reach 

 of man's hands. Other important effects have been noted. 

 The disappearance of forests in the catchment areas of some 

 streams, in the Punjab, in Bengal and in Assam, has altered 

 the flow of rivers, so that after the rains they now rise more 

 rapidly and come down more torrentially. In the Punjab the 

 exposure of the soil by the cutting of trees has caused great 

 landslides, violent floods in the rivers, and the washing away 

 of much of the cultivated soil. 



IMMEDIATE RESULTS 



Scotland has suffered in less degree. Nevertheless the 

 more sudden and more serious flooding of the rivers after 

 heavy rain has had accountable effect upon their inhabitants 

 and those of the low lying valleys, drowning such creatures 

 as Badgers often in great numbers the two great floods of 

 the Findhorn in 1829, say the brothers Stuart, drowned in 

 their holes most of the Badgers in the lower banks , washing 

 into the stream and to destruction lesser things, fish-fry and 

 invertebrate animals which sheltered in still water by the banks, 

 and disturbing and dispersing the spawning beds and spawn 

 of Trout and Salmon. Mr P. D. Malloch has stated that after 

 a flood he has seen the sides of the Tay almost white with 

 the eggs of Salmon, swept from the spawning beds and de- 

 stroyed. 



SCOTTISH FAUNA ORIGINALLY A FOREST FAUNA 



But these are puny effects in relation to the fauna as a 

 whole. The destruction of forest has told more heavily upon 

 the inhabitants of the land, and this owing to the nature of the 

 animal assemblage which the aboriginal woodland of Britain 

 induced to migrate hither from the Continent, in the times 

 succeeding the Ice Age. 



At the present day the typical pine forest region, or 



