what is the behavior of global forwarders

[kalyanasundaram S]

Hi,
  I have a problem regarding forwarders. I configured /etc/named.conf global option with the following
 global {
  forward only;
  forwarders {1.2.3.4; };
  ......
  ....
 }

..
..
zone "example.com" in {
   type forward;
   forward first;
   forwarders { 3.3.3.3; };
};

this 3.3.3.3 does not exist. (it is a stand alone setup- so there is no root server access,and 1.2.3.4 is alive in that stand alone setup) I queried for some client in example.com. What i expected was that it is not able to contact 3.3.3.3 so it should go for global forwarders(in this case 1.2.3.4) . But it looks for root server and said connection time out.

then again i had 
zone "example.com" in {
   type forward;
};
i expected atleast now it should go for global forwarders. But again the same.

what is default behaviour of global forwarders. Where it is used? how do i configure my dns to go for global forwarders when the forward zone forwarders is not available?

is it a bug or am i missing some option to set?

thanks in advance,
  -"Kalyan"