360 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST 



that it frequented the thick forests where the Woodpeckers 

 found a home. On the other hand, there is evidence 

 that the progressive destruction of the forest, especially 

 by the iron-furnaces, was accompanied by the progressive 

 decrease of the Great Spotted Woodpecker, and Dr Harvie- 

 Brown has shown that the years of its complete and almost 

 sudden disappearance, 1840 to 1850, were marked by "vast 

 and general destruction or burning of old trees," such as 

 the bird selects for its nesting holes. 



Here is tolerably clear testimony that the Great Spotted 

 Woodpecker was banished from Scotland by the destruction 

 of the woodland. And to-day we have corroborative evidence 

 of the influence of forest, for the replanting of many years 

 ago has now borne fruit in woods of such trees as have again 

 induced the Woodpecker to remain as a nester. It has become 

 tolerably and increasingly common in the woods of Lowland 

 Scotland, where it has been absent at any rate since the great 

 forests were destroyed ; so that from the southern borders 

 it now ranges to the Firth of Forth. It has taken up its abode 

 anew in parts of Perthshire, as at Dunkeld and Pitlochry, and 

 soon, if fresh destruction of woodland has not interfered with 

 Nature's ways, we may hope to see it occupying the ancestral 

 haunts in the pine forests of Speyside. With the forest it 

 disappeared and with the forest it has come again. 



CONCLUSIONS REGARDING FOREST DESTRUCTION 



These typical examples of the histories of forest beasts 

 and birds show better than any general statement could have 

 done the vital -influence which the destruction of the woods 

 of Scotland has had upon the native fauna. It may be 

 objected that the conclusions I have drawn are exaggerated ; 

 that had the disappearance of the forest been the prime cause 

 of extermination, all the forest creatures would have disap- 

 peared simultaneously. But this is not so. Various creatures 

 depend on the forest in different degree : some for temporary 

 shelter, some for food, some for breeding-places ; and the 

 rapidity of the extermination of a forest animal is a function 

 not only of the destruction of the forest, but also of the vital 

 connection of the creature with the forest. Compare the 

 cases of the Squirrel and the Great Spotted W T oodpecker, 



