TIME AND CHANGE 



the trunk of a tree, I do not fully appreciate the 

 spectacle till I know she is feeling for the burrow of 

 a tree-borer, Tremex, upon the larvae of which her 

 own young feed. She must survey her territory like 

 an oil-digger and calculate where she is likely to 

 strike oil, which in her case is the burrow of her host 

 Tremex. There is a vast series of facts in natural 

 history like this that are of little interest until we 

 understand them. They are like the outside of a 

 book which may attract us, but which can mean 

 little to us until we have opened and perused its 

 pages. 



The nature-lover is not looking for mere facts, 

 but for meanings, for something he can translate 

 into the terms of his own life. He wants facts, but 

 significant facts — luminous facts that throw light 

 upon the ways of animate and inanimate nature. 

 A bird picking up crumbs from my window-sill does 

 not mean much to me. It is a pleasing sight and 

 touches a tender cord, but it does not add much to 

 my knowledge of bird-life. But when I see a bird 

 pecking and fluttering angrily at my window-pane, 

 as I now and then do in spring, apparently under 

 violent pressure to get in, I am witnessing a signi- 

 ficant comedy in bird-life, one that illustrates the 

 limits of animal instinct. The bird takes its own 

 reflected image in the glass for a hated rival, and is 

 bent on demolishing it. Let the assaulting bird get 

 a glimpse of the inside of the empty room through 



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