260 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis 
study, must have occurred within a short period, for 
the existence of the clay bank covered less than a score 
of years. How many bee kingdoms or families have 
grown, lived and crumbled to oblivion here in that time, 
we have no way of knowing. Under our very eyes we 
have seen one grow to an unwieldy size at the expense 
of another that has almost crumbled to decay. 
It may seem naive for us to inquire into the mean- 
ing of all the little commonplace phenomena which we 
have observed here, and to search for many more not 
yet observed. A casual reader might say ‘‘Of course 
the organisms adjust themselves to each other and to 
their environment; why all this fuss about it?’’ Per- 
haps the same casual observer would have said to 
Isaac Newton ‘‘Of course the apple will fall; why ask 
questions about it??? And yet while we glibly call the 
phenomena commonplace, we must admit that we really 
know so little about the vital points in the lives of these 
organisms in this one microcosm that if we were to at- 
tempt to modify the balance of the population there we 
should bungle the delicate adjustments so that our ex- 
periments would not end anywhere near the point where 
we aimed; and until we can thus direct the controlling 
factors, we cannot boast an understanding of the sub- 
ject. 
‘‘Every reflective biologist must know that no living 
being is self-sufficient, or would be what it is, or be at 
all, if it were not part of the natural world, although no 
truth is easier to lose sight of.’’ W. D. Brooks. 
