No. 4 ([page 33, note]). The lignivorous insects that attack living trees almost uniformly confine their ravages to trees already unsound or diseased in growth from the depredations of leaf-eaters, such as caterpillars and the like, or from other causes. The decay of the tree, therefore, is the cause not the consequence of the invasions of the borer. This subject has been discussed by Perris in the Annales de la Société Entomologique de la France, for 1851 (?), and his conclusions are confirmed by the observations of Samanos, who quotes, at some length, the views of Perris. "Having, for fifteen years," says the latter author, "incessantly studied the habits of lignivorous insects in one of the best wooded regions of France, I have observed facts enough to feel myself warranted in expressing my conclusions, which are: that insects in general—I am not speaking of those which confine their voracity to the leaf—do not attack trees in sound health, and they assail those only whose normal conditions and functions have been by some cause impaired."
See, more fully, Samanos, Traité de la Culture du Pin Maritime, Paris, 1864, pp. 140-145.
No. 5 ([page 34, note]). Very interesting observations, on the agency of the squirrel and other small animals in planting and in destroying nuts and other seeds of trees, may be found in a paper on the Succession of Forests in Thoreau's Excursions, pp. 135 et seqq.
I once saw several quarts of beech-nuts taken from the winter quarters of a family of flying squirrels in a hollow tree. The kernels were neatly stripped of their shells and carefully stored in a dry cavity.
No. 6 ([page 40, note]). Schroeder van der Kolk, in Het Verschil tusschen den Psychischen Aanleg van het Dier en van den Mensch, cites from Burdach and other authorities many interesting facts respecting instincts lost, or newly developed and become hereditary, in the lower animals, and he quotes Aristotle and Pliny as evidence that the common quadrupeds and fowls of our fields and our poultry yards were much less perfectly domesticated in their times than long, long ages of servitude have now made them.
Perhaps the half-wild character ascribed by P. Læstadius and other Swedish writers to the reindeer of Lapland, may be in some degree due to the comparative shortness of the period during which he has been partially tamed. The domestic swine bred in the woods of Hungary and the buffaloes of Southern Italy are so wild and savage as to be very dangerous to all but their keepers. The former have relapsed into their original condition, the latter have not yet been reclaimed from it.
Among other instances of obliterated instincts, Schroeder van der Kolk states that in Holland, where, for centuries, the young of the cow has been usually taken from the dam at birth and fed by hand, calves, even if left with the mother, make no attempt to suck; while in England, where calves are not weaned until several weeks old, they resort to the udder as naturally as the young of wild quadrupeds.—Ziel en Ligchaam, p. 128, n.
No. 7 ([page 60, first note]). At Piè di Mulera, at the outlet of the Val Anzasca, near the principal hotel, is a vine measuring thirty-one inches in circumference. The door of the chapter-hall in the cloister of the church of San Giovanni, at Saluzzo, is of vine wood, and the boards of which the panels were made could not have been less than ten inches wide. Statues and other objects of considerable dimensions, of vine wood, are mentioned by ancient writers.
No. 8 ([page 63, second note]). Cartier, A. D. 1535-'6, mentions "vines, great melons, cucumbers, gourds [courges], pease, beans of various colors, but not like ours," as common among the Indians of the banks of the St. Lawrence.—Bref Recit, etc., reprint. Paris, 1863, pp. 13, a; 14, b; 20, b; 31, a.
No. 8 ([page 65, second paragraph]). It may be considered very highly probable, if not certain, that the undiscriminating herbalists of the sixteenth century must have overlooked many plants native to this island. An English botanist, in an hour's visit to Aden, discovered several species of plants on rocks always reported, even by scientific travellers, as absolutely barren. But after all, it appears to be well established that the original flora of St. Helena was extremely limited, though now counting hundreds of species.