CHAPTER XVII 
VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL 
BETWIXT the vegetable and animal worlds there is, 
always and everywhere, a very close connection, 
One finds in the history of nations many examples 
of the effect that forests have had upon their history. 
In the time of Charles the Great, for example, the 
boundary of German and Slav in Europe coincided with 
the limits of the pine forest. The Germans possessed 
cattle and so required oak or other deciduous woods, 
leaving the great pine forests to the Slav.'. The early 
history of Britain was much influenced by the great 
forests of the Sussex weald and of central England, 
which remained a safe refuge for outlaws and masterless 
men until well into the middle ages.* 
Man has, of course, transformed and entirely altered 
the world’s vegetation in all civilised countries and even 
in others, for the most savage tribes burn the woods. 
Even the distribution of plants in the Alps is altered by 
human agency, for the different habits and customs of 
Italian and German peasants have produced quite a 
different attitude for many of the flowering plants on 
the different sides of those mountains. 
As of course every one knows, all animals live upon 
some sort of vegetable food, either directly or indirectly. 
Plants try to protect themselves against being de- 
voured by all sorts of ingenious contrivances, such as 
thorns and spines, bitter or poisonous secretions, milky 
juice or latex, and the like. 
* See ‘Romance of Early British Life.” 
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