242 THE BIOLOGY OF THE SEASONS 



providential. These creatures have constitutions which 

 reproduce prolifically prodigiously prolificacy, while 

 their forbears and cousins which were more economically 

 reproductive have all passed away. The survivors sur- 

 vive, but never fortuitously. In this set of cases which 

 we are considering, only those survived which had the 

 sufficiently prolific constitution. They survive, not only 

 because their constitution is strong, that always counts 

 for much, but because they are many ; and they are 

 many, primarily, because it is of the nature of simple 

 unsophisticated life to be abundant, to be prolific. It is a 

 stream which is always overflowing its banks. And so, 

 on this fine Autumn day, the harvest carts pass heavily 

 laden with sheaves, strong coveys of partridges darken the 

 stubble, the links are crowded with rabbits, the air is full 

 of whirling seeds, the fallow-ground is vibrating with 

 the gossamer threads of small spiders that have sunk to 

 earth and gone into hiding, the apples fall in showers in 

 the orchard, and we wonder, as men have wondered for 

 thousands of years, at the Abundance of Life. 



II 



It would be idle to deny that there is in Autumn the 

 fall of the year an irrepressible note of decadence ; it is 

 echoed in a whisper by the rustle of falling leaves. Bene- 

 ficent in their life, for all the plant's wealth is due to them, 

 they are beautiful in their dying. They have worked 

 themselves out, for it is more than a metaphor to speak of 

 the industry of the leaf ; liquid supplies are running 

 short, the sun's rays are fewer, the first shock of frost has 

 come, and the leaves must die. But before they die they 

 surrender to the plant all that they have still left that is 

 worth having. There is a retreat of particles down the 



