186 A. G. HAMILTON. 
mostly composed of beech trees, and a few oaks or pines. But at 
the time of the pre-historic man who formed the kitchen-middens, 
the pine covered the most of the country. In the peat bogs too, 
oaks are found embedded, and, at a greater depth pines.”* And 
H. O. Forbes says of Sumatran primeval forests: ‘‘ When, how- 
ever, this ancient forest is devastated to any great extent, either 
by natural means or by the wood-cutter’s axe, the trees that arise 
belong to a different lineage, the new wood isin great bulk of 
different species, which, strange to say, were but rarely found in 
the old forest.” . . . . “In every clearing, trees from their 
gigantic size have here and there escaped the axe, and have been 
allowed to stand unmolested. One cannot resist a feeling of pity 
for the solitude of these towering monarchs, whose grandeur, con- 
cealed as they stood amid the multitude of their peers, can now 
be seen in all its stateliness. They look the very picture of 
strength and immobility, yet though they have withstood in the 
company of their fellows the storm and sun of centuries, they 
survive their solitude but a very few seasons, getting feebler year 
by year, one great limb after another dying and dropping off, till 
all life ceases, when some lightning flash or sudden blast measures 
their noble stems on the ground.”+ The latter part of this quo- 
tation is a vivid picture of what occurs in Australia when solitary 
trees are left in clearing a forest. 
As illustrating the effect which shade may have in determining 
the existence of trees, Wallace gives the following account of the 
struggle between trees in the forests of Denmark, from the 
researches of M. Hansten-Blangsted : ‘The chief combatants are 
the beech and the birch, the former being everywhere successful 
in its invasions, Forests composed wholly of birch are now found 
only in sterile, sandy tracts ; everywhere else the trees are mixed 
and wherever the soil is favourable the beech rapidly drives out 
the birch, The latter loses its branches at the touch of the beech, 
and devotes all its strength to the upper part where it towers 
* Op. cit., p. 43. 
+ Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, 1st ed., p. 132. 
