BIOLOGY IN ITS WIDER ASPECTS 1197 



nothing repulsive ; we are face to face with the romance of a creature 

 that saves its Hfe by blowing soap-bubbles. As the summer advances 

 the insects take to wing, and we see no more of the froth-blowers. 

 Children educated in such common sights of the country are not 

 likely to abuse their leisure. 



They say that Tennyson once lingered over the ongoings in the 

 brook by the wayside, and, turning away at last said: "What an 

 imagination God has." Often, in any case, in his poems, he expressed 

 the dramatic feature that is discernible in many a familiar sight. 



To-day I saw the dragon-fly 



Come from the wells where he did lie. 



An inner impulse rent the veil 

 Of his old husk; from head to tail 

 Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 



He dried his wings; like gauze they grew; 

 Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew 

 A living flash of light he flew. 



The summer-bee, short-lived martyr to extreme state-socialism, 

 finds a patch of white clover rich in nectar. Having filled her honey- 

 sac she makes a bee-line for home, and there gives up her treasure- 

 trove to housekeeping workers. Whereupon, relieved of her burden, 

 she executes a peculiar ecstatic dance on the honeycomb, tripping 

 round and round with a short radius, sometimes for about a minute 

 without stopping. Bystander foragers are excited by this display, 

 and throng near her, nosing her with their feelers. They get the clue 

 of clover perfume, and with this hint they hurry forth. Meanwhile 

 the dancer has shifted her stage to another part of the honeycomb, 

 where she pirouettes afresh, and by this strange performance passes 

 the olfactory tidings to other comrades. Soon there are many 

 visitors at the clover patch, but when the nectar is exhausted the 

 visits automatically cease since the disappointed bee does not dance 

 when she goes back to the hive. No honey, no dance. 



Animate Nature is full of these subtleties, and they make for the 

 enrichment and enhancement of human life. It is not that they are 

 quaint pieces of information; it is rather that they give us glimpses 

 into the heart of things. They suggest Walt Whitman's exclamation: 

 "Prais'd be the fathomless universe, for life and joy, for objects and 

 knowledge curious.-" 



Another great gain is to be found in the big ideas of Natural 

 History, the biggest of all being Organic Evolution. From simple 

 primordial organisms in a Pre-Cambrian Sea have come all the living 

 creatures we know, including ourselves. By natural processes of 

 changing and entailing, sifting and singling, such as can be studied 

 in operation to-day, there has evolved in the course of hundreds of 



