e blind grip of instinct held them. On, on, on they must
go! Always before in their nomadic life there had been a goal--a
sanctuary of hollow tree, snug heart of bamboos--surely this terrible
grind must end somehow. In this crisis, even the Spirit of the Army
was helpless. Along the normal paths of Eciton life he could inspire
endless enthusiasm, illimitable energy, but here his material units
were bound upon the wheel of their perfection of instinct. Through sun
and cloud, day and night, hour after hour there was found no Eciton
with individual initiative enough to turn aside an ant's breadth from
the circle which he had traversed perhaps fifteen times: the masters
of the jungle had become their own mental prey.

Fewer and fewer now came along the well worn path; burdens littered
the line of march, like the arms and accoutrements thrown down by a
retreating army. At last a scanty single line struggled past--tired,
hopeless, bewildered, idiotic and thoughtless to the last. Then some
half dead Eciton straggled from the circle along the beach, and threw
the line behind him into confusion. The desperation of total
exhaustion had accomplished what necessity and opportunity and normal
life could not. Several others followed his scent instead of that
leading back toward the outhouse, and as an amoeba gradually flows
into one of its own pseudopodia, so the forlorn hope of the great
Eciton army passed slowly down the beach and on into the jungle. Would
they die singly and in bewildered groups, or would the remnant draw
together, and again guided by the super-mind of its Mentor lay the
foundation of another army, and again come to nest in my outhouse?

Thus was the ending still unfinished, the finale buried in the
future--and in this we find the fascination of Nature and of Science.
Who can be bored for a moment in the short existence vouchsafed us
here; with dramatic beginnings barely hidden in the dust, with the
excitement of every moment of the present, and with all of cosmic
possibility lying just concealed in the future, whether of Betelgeuze,
of Amoeba or--of ourselves? _Vogue la galere!_

APPENDIX OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES

Page Line

4 26 Moriche Oriole; _Icterus chrysocephalus_ (Linne)

8 10 Toad; _Bufo guttatus Schneid_.

18 3 Bat; _Furipterus horrens_ (F. Cuv.)

4 Large Bats; _Vampyrus spectrum_ (Linne)

6 Vampire Bats; _Desmodus rotundus_ (Geoff.)

22 5 Giant Catfish