lic to stamp the enterprise with their approval and their liberal contribution. Such a co-operative movement would have a mighty influence for good. It would enable the best minds in the country to inaugurate a forest policy, adapted to our soil and climate. It would eventually result in the establishment of a forestry school, broad, wise and patriotic. It would show to the country that the American Forestry Association could lead a movement illustrating the advantages of practical forestry, as well as the cultivation of the sentimental or aesthetic side of the forestry question.

THE RELATIONS OF INSECTS AND BIRDS TO PRESENT FOREST CONDITIONS.

BY PROF. A. D. HOPKINS, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Forests under natural conditions, or, in other words, those unaffected by the advent of civilization, appear to be under the control of certain laws of nature which govern the vegetable and animal species therein in such a manner that a harmonious balance is usually preserved. No species of the vegetable kingdom is allowed to suffer severely from the undue increase of its enemies in the animal kingdom. Few, if any, species of the animal kingdom become extinct on account of a failure of their food, or from the attack of their natural enemies. A continued battle of the species exists, but it is a war in which none are conquered and none are conquerors, each species battling for its existence makes possible the existence of some other species; thus a balance is preserved.

This may be the rule under natural conditions, and all may go well until the unnatural conditions following the advent of civilization brings about a change. Then nature's laws are broken, obscure species of insects and plants come to the front, and others which were formerly abundant disappear. In the confusion, certain enemies of plants are for a time exempt from

the attack of their enemies, and are left free to commit desperate ravages upon some species of vegetation; others, from a lack of a sufficient supply of their natural food, change their habits, and infest plants of an entirely different character; thus they escape for a time their enemies, which had previously kept them within proper bounds; others are introduced from foreign countries. Their enemies having been left behind, they invade our forests unmolested, except by man, until some of their old enemies are introduced, or they acquire new ones here.

When the process of clearing the land commences, new conditions are presented to the forest insects which are most favorable to their increase. The girdled trees in clearings, the logs, stumps and tops, and the injuries to standing timber by fire, all contribute to their multiplication, some of them changing their habits from that of infesting diseased and dead timber, to that of attacking the living, and through their numbers they are enabled to kill trees on their own account.

Some ten years ago, when the West Virginia Central & Pittsburg Railroad was being built through a portion of the spruce forests in our State, the timber along the line commenced to die from the attack of insects, and the trouble continued to increase and spread during the next three years until thousands of acres of some of the finest timber in this State was killed. Only four years ago an invasion of the destructive Pine Bark Beetle, starting somewhere near the line between West Virginia and Virginia, in Rockingham or Hampshire counties, spread like a conflagration over these and adjoining States wherever the pine grew. The pine timber on hundreds of square miles was killed, causing a loss of property having a value of more than a million and a half dollars. Similar devastations have taken place in Maine, New York and New Brunswick, and in the forests of Germany and France. Most, if not all, of these destructive invasions were occasioned by unnatural conditions brought about through the influence of man.

With the existing conditions in our forests, as previously mentioned, the opportunity offered for the breeding and multiplication of forest tree insects being most favorable, we are confronted with the problem of preventing damage and loss from the ravages of the obnoxious kinds.

Never was there a better time to study the intimate relations of forest-tree insects to certain forest conditions. Neither can there be a better time to obtain knowledge of the characters and habits of forest-tree insects, with a view of utilizing this knowledge in the future system of forest management, which must necessarily follow this age of forest destruction.

With reference to the relation of birds to certain forest conditions, I realize that I will be trespassing upon a sacred and much lauded faith among our people, that birds are our greatest friends as insect destroyers, when I say, that from my own observations, I am ready to conclude that in the end they have very little, if any, beneficial influences in the prevention of insect depredations in our forests. That insectiverous birds obtain the larger share of their food from the insect world, and that they devour immense numbers of insects and other small forms of animal life, no one can doubt. They are not, however, our friends to the extent that they will devour those only which we look upon as injurious. In truth, they make no choice between those which are beneficial and those which are injurious. They capture alike the parasites of the injurious species, the parasite of the parasite, as well as the injurious species; hence it would appear that in the end no good is accomplished. They merely take the food nature has provided from the ranks of the insect armies of opposing forces, and neither one force or the other thereby gains an advantage.

One class of birds known as Woodpeckers, which, by the way, are recognized above all others as exercising the greatest benefit to mankind in the destruction of wood-infesting insects, are not so beneficial as we have been led to suppose. My attention was forcibly called to this fact during an investigation with reference to beneficial forest-tree insects in Germany in 1892, where I was seeking for an enemy to introduce against our destructive bark beetles. I determined that a certain species, a Clerid Beetle, was by far the greatest enemy of European bark beetles, and was successful in finding a forest in which they were common. I was surprised, however, to find that the Woodpeckers were the greatest enemy of the Clerid. The larvae, pupae and adults of this beneficial insect had occurred in great numbers in the bark of small pine trees that had been broken by snow the previous winter. They had destroyed

the attack of their enemies, and are left free to commit desperate ravages upon some species of vegetation; others, from a lack of a sufficient supply of their natural food, change their habits, and infest plants of an entirely different character; thus they escape for a time their enemies, which had previously kept them within proper bounds; others are introduced from foreign countries. Their enemies having been left behind, they invade our forests unmolested, except by man, until some of their old enemies are introduced, or they acquire new ones here.

When the process of clearing the land commences, new conditions are presented to the forest insects which are most favorable to their increase. The girdled trees in clearings, the logs, stumps and tops, and the injuries to standing timber by fire, all contribute to their multiplication, some of them changing their habits from that of infesting diseased and dead timber, to that of attacking the living, and through their numbers they are enabled to kill trees on their own account.

Some ten years ago, when the West Virginia Central & Pittsburg Railroad was being built through a portion of the spruce forests in our State, the timber along the line commenced to die from the attack of insects, and the trouble continued to increase and spread during the next three years until thousands of acres of some of the finest timber in this State was killed. Only four years ago an invasion of the destructive Pine Bark Beetle, starting somewhere near the line between West Virginia and Virginia, in Rockingham or Hampshire counties, spread like a conflagration over these and adjoining States wherever the pine grew. The pine timber on hundreds of square miles was killed, causing a loss of property having a value of more than a million and a half dollars. Similar devastations have taken place in Maine, New York and New Brunswick, and in the forests of Germany and France. Most, if not all, of these destructive invasions were occasioned by unnatural conditions brought about through the influence of man.

With the existing conditions in our forests, as previously mentioned, the opportunity offered for the breeding and multiplication of forest tree insects being most favorable, we are confronted with the problem of preventing damage and loss from the ravages of the obnoxious kinds.

Never was there a better time to study the intimate relations of forest-tree insects to certain forest conditions. Neither can there be a better time to obtain knowledge of the characters and habits of forest-tree insects, with a view of utilizing this knowledge in the future system of forest management, which must necessarily follow this age of forest destruction.

With reference to the relation of birds to certain forest conditions, I realize that I will be trespassing upon a sacred and much lauded faith among our people, that birds are our greatest friends as insect destroyers, when I say, that from my own observations, I am ready to conclude that in the end they have very little, if any, beneficial influences in the prevention of insect depredations in our forests. That insectiverous birds obtain the larger share of their food from the insect world, and that they devour immense numbers of insects and other small forms of animal life, no one can doubt. They are not, however, our friends to the extent that they will devour those only which we look upon as injurious. In truth, they make no choice between those which are beneficial and those which are injurious. They capture alike the parasites of the injurious species, the parasite of the parasite, as well as the injurious species; hence it would appear that in the end no good is accomplished. They merely take the food nature has provided from the ranks of the insect armies of opposing forces, and neither one force or the other thereby gains an advantage.

One class of birds known as Woodpeckers, which, by the way, are recognized above all others as exercising the greatest benefit to mankind in the destruction of wood-infesting insects, are not so beneficial as we have been led to suppose. My attention was forcibly called to this fact during an investigation with reference to beneficial forest-tree insects in Germany in 1892, where I was seeking for an enemy to introduce against our destructive bark beetles. I determined that a certain species, a Clerid Beetle, was by far the greatest enemy of European bark beetles, and was successful in finding a forest in which they were common. I was surprised, however, to find that the Woodpeckers were the greatest enemy of the Clerid. The larvae, pupae and adults of this beneficial insect had occurred in great numbers in the bark of small pine trees that had been broken by snow the previous winter. They had destroyed