146 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
ment must be openings for the muddy waters of 
the Ganges to find an exit, and through these 
openings the tides flow strongly many miles up- 
country ; they hold up the fresh water, cause it to 
flood the low islands, and to deposit at least a 
portion of its rich silt ere the ebbing tide carries 
it away to the sea. Upon these islands, again, the 
forest, ever watchful, seizes. The mangroves rapidly 
line the waterways and define them; their seeds fall 
on the mud-banks at low-water, to stand upright on 
spiky ends, or on to the moving tide, to float away 
in the hope of meeting some other congenial resting- 
place ; and once found, there is scant delay in 
asserting vitality. They cannot, as do other trees 
in more secure positions, await for months or years 
such conditions as may be the most favourable for 
their growth; they have a part to perform that 
brooks no delay—the duty of arresting the débris 
of the hills, so that, after hundreds of miles of 
preparation, the soil, that has become ready for the 
propagation of the food-producing plants for the 
use of the food-consuming animals, may be fully 
utilized. 
Nature has a serious task when arranging for the 
continuance of plant-life, in whose absence animal- 
life must. soon cease, and the study of her methods 
will surely supply material for never-ending research. 
In Indian forestry we know but little of the rotation 
of species, and many silvicultural failures have not 
improbably been due to our ignorance. In the 
preceding lines the narrative has been on each 
occasion broken off: in the one case with the estab- 
lishment of the hard-woods, and in the other with 
