190 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



to disaster and forced to cruelty if he does not 

 habitually look ahead. The relative enfeeblement 

 of the tradition or the instinct to store and save 

 may in critical times of shortage imperil national 

 welfare, and one can but hope that in this, as in 

 parallel cases, there will be a replacement of in- 

 stinctive or traditional habit by deliberate rational 

 purpose. As society develops it is ever shedding 

 the unplastic and the incongruent, as a growing lob- 

 ster molts its encumbering sherd. But in putting on 

 a new garment adapted to changed times and 

 changed folk-ways, it is ours to make sure that it be 

 not less effective than was the old-fashioned jacket 

 of thrift. 



