EDITORIAL 
07 
the United States Department of Agri- 
culture, he has had and has exercised 
to conspicuous advantage wonderful 
opportunities for helping agriculturists, 
naturalists, young students and others 
who are interested in the study of in- 
sects and other objects of nature. 
His achievements in technical re- 
search, in the administrative duties of 
the office, and in the publication of 
many books are too extended for us to 
detail. He has, by patient and unre- 
mitting toil, by geniality to his fellow 
beings, risen to his present position as 
a scientist and royally good fellow. 
Thousands admire him for his pro- 
found knowledge, and many more love 
him for his generous regard for hu- 
manity. He has the brain and the abil- 
ity of a great scholar, and the big heart 
of one who loves not only nature but 
humanity. 
We wrote to him to express our sat- 
isfaction at his election to the high 
office of President of the American 
Association. From his delightful let- 
ter of appreciation we quote the fol- 
lowing : 
Interesting New Things to See. 
Washington, D. C. 
To the Editor : 
I wish every boy and girl could live, 
not necessarily in the country, but near 
the country — near enough to get out 
into a patch of woods with a little 
stream running through it. There are 
so many interesting things to be seen 
in such places. And there are so many 
new things — things worth writing up 
and publishing. In The Agassiz Asso- 
ciation is nationalized an idea that 
came to me more than fifty years ago 
when I helped to found a boys’ natural 
history society at Ithaca. We had 
weekly meetings, and studied the birds 
and the insects and the snails, but we 
had only one member who liked fossils 
and none who were interested in plants. 
We kept it up for several years, and 
some of us have retained our interest 
in these things through life. 
The old-fashioned natural history 
has now for the most part dis- 
appeared in the colleges and univer- 
sities. and instead they teach largely of 
“chromosomes” and “genes” and the 
beginnings of life. But that same old 
natural history spirit has been holding 
on in the boys’ and girls’ clubs and in 
The Agassiz Association and in the 
Wild Flower Preservation Association 
and in nature-loving hearts like yours, 
Doctor Bigelow, and finds now an out- 
let even in the college-warped biolo- 
gists in the new Ecological Society of 
America. It seems to me almost as 
though a natural history boom were 
coming 1 
Long life to you ! 
Sincerely yours, 
L. O. Howard. 
A Parody of the Ridiculous Unknown. 
On page XI of our number for De- 
cember, 1920, we asked, “What is an 
Anty-mire?” Any one versed in 
etymology and entomology under- 
stands that “mire” is the old-time name 
for ant, and that “anty” might be taken 
as a nickname for the ant. Several 
correspondents have kindly given in- 
formation along that line. The Rev- 
erend C. B. Bliss of Mclndoe Falls, 
Vermont, writes significantly that 
while two Boy Scouts were in his office 
helping to fold his letters he without 
comment showed them the little poem 
and one of them said, “It is a little red 
ant. We have always called them any- 
mires. (It sounded like annie-mires.)” 
But that does not solve the problem. 
The editor of this magazine, country 
born and bred, and knowing pretty 
well the spirit of the New Englanders, 
does not believe that those old-timers 
sung about a little dog chasing ants. 
It is doubtful whether any dog would 
“tree” an ant ; and it is also doubtful 
if those who originated that old song 
were sufficiently close observers to no- 
tice a dog treeing or barking at an ant ! 
Does not the inquiry as to whether the 
etymology is real or mythical need a 
little further consideration? Isn’t it 
perhaps a case of the simple and known 
used emblematically for the large and 
unknown? Isn’t the suggestion of a 
“hybrid between a Gollywampus and 
a Hoolawa” nearer the truth? The sea 
serpent has not been banished nor have 
many other animals originated in the 
childhood of the human race. We be- 
lieve the humor in the song was really 
a “juxtaposition of incongruous con- 
cepts” in applying a colloquial name 
to a known object to make the dog 
seem ridiculous in chasing the big 
bugaboo of an unknown form of ani- 
