SOME CAUSES OF THE DECAY OF AUSTRALIAN FORESTS. 91 
had laid one side bare, while on the opposite side a rectangular 
sheet of bark had been taken off by the aborigines for the purpose 
-of making a pegging board in order to stretch out opossum skins. 
t 
kept his place. Yet, not far off, not many hundreds of yards, 
large numbers of apparently healthy trees of not more than fifteen 
or twenty seasons, were to be seen smitten with decay and dying. 
se the bark peels off these young trees not a blemish is to be 
en. Neither caterpillar nor white ant has touched them. The 
ition spread of foliage on every branch while alive, the absence 
of even one single de ad limb, was evidence that there was no 
internal weakness till the fatal so-called “blight” began to make 
he leav 
phenomena is fairly iia by the opossums. ey prefer the 
fresh, sappy leaves of the young trees to the leathery leaves of the 
ardy veteran already ee 
The relationship as of cause and effect between the dis- 
appearing of the 2 Sen and rae multiplication of the opossums 
may be briefly notice a balance of arrangements had been 
reached during previous centuries, it can be very easily believed 
that the advent of the white man has disturbed that bala ance. The 
aboriginal tribes that roamed the Australian forests were supported 
largely by the opossum as an article of food. e animal existed 
daily to feed that assemblage. But this would imply the con- 
sumption of 18,000 opossums every year. Also it has been seen 
at one opossum consumes 200 leaves of a tree in a single night. 
Then using the fi gures which have already appeared in the foregoing 
pages, the result is reached that these 18,000 opossums wo 
destroy upwards of 13,000 trees, and lay bare a space of upwards 
of 700 acres, or considerably more than a square mile. 
RAVAGES OF COPPER-COLOURED BEETLE AT LETHBRIDGE. 
It has been stated already that a small copper-coloured beetle 
had made its appearance at someon 9 miles south of Mere- 
hn bre en ann ering no oer 
po vedire apse scart am the writer visited the locality, — 
