48 Possibilities of Societies. 



insect. It was long thought that man was the only tool-using" 

 animal, and I need scarcely remind you that even amongst 

 the higher animals the use of any instrument or object 

 foreign to their own bodies in this way is of the rarest occur- 

 rence and is regarded as a proof of high intelligence. 



" The thing that struck me as most remarkable " (in 

 the Ammophila), says Professor Williston, of Kansas Uni- 

 versity, " was the unerring judgment in the selection of a 

 pebble of precisely the right size to fit the entrance, and the 

 use of the small pebble in smoothing down and packing the 

 soil over the opening, together with the instinct which taught 

 them to remove every evidence that the earth had been dis- 

 turbed." 



Well, lots of discoveries like those of the Peckhams' 

 remain to be made. There is around us and under our feet, 

 in every bank and tree-trunk and pool, a world of Lilliput 

 whose little people, if we will but attend their performance, 

 are capable by their curious and human-like foibles and 

 whimsicalities of affording us amusement such as we derive 

 from thf revels of Oberon and Titania, and who, moreover, 

 are capable of furnishing us with information and guidance 

 of practical utility. Mr Sladen's recently published work on 

 the Life History of the Humble Bee, describing its struc- 

 ture, development, and behaviour, is a model for any member 

 of a Society like this, who desires to specialise in entomology 

 and aims at producing a standard popular treatise. For 

 those who do not specialise there is the large question of the 

 distribution of animal and vegetable and insect life which is 

 pressing for investigation, and in the solution of which they 

 may help. From my own professional point of view I would 

 say that we have only made the first steps in our acquaint- 

 ance with protozoa and bacteria in relation to health and 

 disease, as scavengers and protectors, and as ruthless in- 

 vaders and secret poisoners, and that anyone with leisure 

 and a microscope may assist us by studying the stratification 

 and the mutual relations of the different kinds of organisms 

 in any stagnant pond and their relations to each other. One 

 principle in medicine in future will be to pit organisms 

 against each other, to set a thief to catch a thief, as Pro- 

 fessor Metchnikoff has done in the case of the Bulgarian 



