THE FALL OF THE YEAR 117 



day and night, for some creatures, such as hive-bees, 

 work all night as well as all day; and similarly it 

 cannot be said that the periodicities of the seasons 

 are the direct causes, say, of the winter blanching 

 of the mountain hare and the ptarmigan, or of the 

 hibernation of hedgehog and bat, or of the migra- 

 tion of most North Temperate birds. All that we 

 can say is that external periodicities and internal 

 rhythms have interacted for ages so that an adaptive 

 adjustment has been arrived at. 



What do we see, then, in the tactics of autumn? 

 In the first place, there is a great variety of arrange- 

 ments for the continuance of the race even when 

 the individual lives come to an end. This is 

 illustrated by the autumn fruits and by the prodigal 

 seed-scattering, by the salmon rowing hard against 

 the stream, by the queen wasps and queen humble- 

 bees seeking out winter quarters, by the honey-bees 

 snuggling together in the hive. In the second place, 

 there is a sacrifice of parts which saves the whole, 

 as when the leaves fall from the trees which they 

 have enriched, or when the hive-bees massacre the 

 drones, or when there is terribly drastic reduction 

 of numbers among wasps and humble-bees. In the 

 third place, there is preparation for hard times to 

 come, as is illustrated in the automatic vegetative 

 storing of starch and the other reserve products by 

 plants, in the instinctive storing of honey by hive- 

 bees and of grain by ants, and in the half-instinctive 

 and half-intelligent storing of nuts by squirrels and 

 of earthworms by moles. There is the making or 



