I'lora of M/c/.)/i^j//. Study at Mk hkjan 3 



The plants, the swarming life in every nook, 

 Bird, beast, and froLT, I was their intimate, 

 And they my harvest home and great estate! 

 What lessons there I had from Nature's book ! ' 



Ants interested him all of his life. He watched them, studied 

 their habits and activities, explored their habitats, and wrote of 

 them : 



I do not claim to know much about their mental processes; they may have 

 some. They certainly do most of the things done by primitive peoples 

 and I think they possess the rudiments of memory and reason. They are 

 feudal robbers. They have division of labor: soldiers, workers of various 

 sort, nurses, etc. They are agriculturists and harvest grains, honey and 

 flesh, and gather manures for their fungous gardens. They keep chattels, 

 make slaves, and fight desperate battles! Their nests are gynecocracies, 

 and the males are reduced to a fugitive life, ending with the reproduction 

 of the species. They have no tools or weapons, their fierce jaws being all- 

 suflicient. They have games but no religion, unless it be the worship of 

 their queen. There are more than a thousand species, but the largest 

 are scarcely an inch long. 



Of "Ants " he wrote also in poetry: 



Safe housed in earth each queen gives myriads birth. 



Slight reason animates the swarming band, 



A hungry plunderbund, as one they stand. 



With instinct strong as death in reason's dearth. 



They are a curious race of little worth. 



The tribal need alone is their command; 



Had they but larger grown, born to expand, 



They must have been the dominant forms on earth. 



Some secret force decreed they should be small. 



Else had lions and tigers no chance at all. 



And men been forced to live in trees like birds. 



That we are not their slaves, to fetch and bring. 



Or tend their gardens and their aphis herds. 



Thanks to that force: through it, man stays the king! * 



Rare happy hours were his along the streamlets and millponds 

 of the countryside. Sometimes he dropped his fishing line for a 

 catch. More often, however, his eager, inquiring mind captured 

 fresh knowledge of the life histories and habits of the animal or 

 plant life he observed. Of " Cat-Fish," he wrote: 



' The Brookside, September 2, 1926. * July 4, 1926. 



