78i 



tion). After the resin has been scraped off from both sides of the tapped 

 place, the overgrowth roll is cut away in order to open new resin canals, or 

 new strips of bark are removed from other sides of the tree. 



Inscriptions. 



Inscriptions and numerals cut into the trunks of trees, as also the 

 irregularly gnawed and bitten places produced by the gnawing of wild 

 animals in winter, should be mentioned as special cases of a common form 

 of longitudinal wound extending into the old wood and connected with a 

 loss of substance. 



In inscriptions, the knife has removed considerable amounts of old 

 wood and, therefore, has penetrated deeper into the trunk; on the other 

 hand, however, the wound is not so broad. The healing of deep incisions 

 begins at the longitudinal edges of the wound ; the upper and lower edges 

 share only to a very insignificant amount in this. The edges of the wound, 

 produced by the cambial zone and provided with their own bark, extend 

 further every year, forming overlapping layers, and thus gradually grow 

 over the wound surface without becoming re-united with the old wood, of 

 which the outermost cell layers, bounding the wound, turn brown and die. 

 These healing layers form only a mass lying close against this wood, like 

 the metal in a mould. At the moment when the two opposite edges of the 

 wound of each letter coalesce, i. e. their cambial zones unite, these zones 

 again form nonnally arranged wood elements, which become increasingly 

 thicker because of the annual zone of increased growth, and thereby leave 

 the original incision deeper and deeper in the trunk. In splitting the wood, 

 a lucky blow will separate the intermediate layers, which had not been 

 injured, between the individual letters or numerals, and the original brown 

 mould falls away from the in-grown w^ood mass. 



Injury Due to Wild Animals. 



In injury due to wild animals, the wounds are broader, more irregular 

 but, as a rule, extend only into the sap wood. 



If the bark and sapwood are torn off from the entire circumference of 

 the trunk, it dries up after a number of years, if the injury did not occur 

 early in spring or in summer. As a rule, however, the gnawing and barking, 

 due to wild animals, takes place only on scattered parts of the trunk and 

 then there follows gradually a formation of overgrowths from the edges of 

 the remaining bark. If such overgrowth edges are injured again in some 

 subsequent year, before the first wound is closed, the wood body apparently 

 takes on a very complicated formation of annual rings. 



The injuries differ with the kind of animal. According to Ratzeburg^ 

 red deer and elk, but not the roebuck, "peel" the tree, since usually in the 

 spring, in feeding, they loosen strips of bark at the bottom by means of their 

 incisors and then tear them off upward. The healing then takes place either 



Walclverderbnis, I, p. 50 ff. 



