ECOLOGICAL 



47 



tology; but not for Ecology, with its essential interests. These, of 

 course, begin with recognising the way the life of its plants and 

 animals is conditioned by their environment, in sea, lake or river, 

 on land or in air, and b> soil, climate and weather. But they soon 

 pass on to the more intimate study of how particular groups and 

 species, and among these their individuals and sexes and their 

 offspring, even to animal societies and plant associations, interact 

 with their environment in detail, and so search out the life-story of 

 each and every living species; and this from its individual to its 



Fig. 14. 



A Very Large Pennatulid Colony {AnihopHlum thomsoni), rising to a height 

 of four feet above the ooze. From a specimen from off Japan. The sterile 

 basal portion is fixed in the substratum; the upper part, bent round for 

 convenience, bears numerous polyps, each about an inch long. 



race and kin, with all their foes and friends. The ecologist is thus 

 the untiring spectator of all the seasonal acts and daily scenes upon 

 the geographic stage of Nature's Biodrama; and from the varied 

 comedic and tragic parts acted by its innumerable players he dis- 

 cerns what he can of its general plot, even to its evolutionary develop- 

 ment and significance. Thus, then, he links theolder geography with 

 the older biology, arousing each to fuller life, by marking out their 

 reciprocal influence. And so much is already clear, that evolution 



