THE FALL OF THE YEAR 117 
day and night, for some creatures, such as hive-bees, 
work all night as well as all day; and similarly it 
cannot be said that the periodicities of the seasons 
are the diréct causes, say, of the winter blanching 
of the mountain hare and the ptarmigan, or of the 
hibernation of hedgehog and bat, or of the migra- 
tion of most North Temperate birds. All that we 
can say is that external periodicities and internal 
rhythms have interacted for ages so that an adaptive 
adjustment has been arrived at. 
What do we see, then, in the tactics of autumn? 
In the first place, there is a great variety of arrange- 
ments for the continuance of the race even when 
the individual lives come to an end. This is 
illustrated by the autumn fruits and by the prodigal 
seed-scattering, by the salmon rowing hard against 
the stream, by the queen wasps and queen humble- 
bees seeking out winter quarters, by the honey-bees 
snuggling together in the hive. In the second place, 
there is a sacrifice of parts which saves the whole, 
as when the leaves fall from the trees which they 
have enriched, or when the hive-bees massacre the 
drones, or when there is terribly drastic reduction 
of numbers among wasps and humble-bees. In the 
third place, there is preparation for hard times to 
come, as is illustrated in the automatic vegetative 
storing of starch and the other reserve products by 
plants, in the instinctive stoting of honey by hive- 
bees and of grain by ants, and in the half-instinctive 
and half-intelligent storing of nuts by squirrels and 
of earthworms by moles. There is the making or 
