30 
VOICES OF THE FOREST 
I* 
V i 
I 
A great hum and murmur, sufficiently loud to 
drown the noise of a brook, warned us that the forest 
was haunted by wasps. Already we had discovered 
their fort, whence more than one endeavoured to lead 
us astray, suspecting our steps, and obviously ill-dis¬ 
posed towards us. 
In the very localities least frequented by the wasps, 
light, hoarse, internal rustlings seemed to issue from 
the trees. Were these the voices of their genii, their 
Dryads? No, indeed; but of their mysterious enemies, 
the mighty populace of the shadows, which, following 
up the veins of the trunk and penetrating its entire 
extent, work out for themselves, with patient teeth, 
innumerable ways and channels and galleries. Some¬ 
times nearly a hundred thousand scolyti* * (for such is 
their name) are found in a single tree. The sickly fir 
is at length reduced by their teeth to the- condition 
of a piece of delicate lace-work. Yet the bark remains 
intact, and deludes us with the phantom of life. 
How does the tree defend itself? Sometimes by 
its sap, which, while preserving its strength, asphyxi¬ 
ates the enemy; but more frequently it is assisted by 
a friend, a physician, from without—the woodpecker 
—which carefully auscultates it, taps and strikes it 
with its strong hammer, and with persevering ardour 
watches for and pursues the nibbling colony. 
Is this internal combat between the two lives, the 
animal and the vegetable, really understood ? Of this 
cannot be sure, and there are times when I think myself deceived. 
* A genus of Cokoptera. 
