from the scattered anthills simultaneously and mated in midair.
Needham was especially drawn to the ants, as I had been.
"I'm pretty sure I've seen that species in other parts of the longleaf savanna," he said. "It might be a new species. Hills like that are pretty rare in this part of the country, but as I recall it, where you do find them they're densely crowded. My guess is that each hill is a nest for a separate colony, but I'm not sure about that at all."
Raff responded eagerly. "I think they're separate. I've seen workers from different nests fighting a couple of times."
"Hey. Why don't we go over to Nokobee some Saturday soon and take a look?" Needham said. "We could get a few of the guys together and make an expedition of it."
Two Saturdays later the expedition to Nokobee was launched. Raff was home that weekend. He'd given Needham instructions and a hand-drawn map to get to the lake.
Early that morning Ainesley drove him to the Nokobee trailhead so he could be waiting for the others when they came in from Tallahassee. As soon as Needham and six of the Bug Bash students arrived, Raff led them on a tour of the anthills around Dead Owl Cove. They then took a walk along the west shore of the lake, looking for more of the nests. Several were found, but none as densely grouped as the population at Dead Owl Cove. All of the students carried nets, and dropped ants and other kinds of insects in killing jars and vials of alcohol for later study.
On the way out Raff lingered with Needham at the anthills, observing a bit more of whatever activity could be seen on their surfaces. Then all drove back together to Tallahassee and the Florida State University campus. Needham asked Raff to sit next to him during the return trip.
"I've got a suggestion that you shouldn't feel obligated to take if you're not interested. I'm sure this species of ant has never been studied before. If you were to start a complete study and add that to the notes you already have, it seems to me it might make a very good honors thesis. You could do it pretty conveniently because you live so close."
Raff nodded enthusiastically. "Yessir," he said.
"I know your senior year is still a long way off," Needham continued, "but believe me, you can never have too much time to do a good honors thesis. You might even be able to publish a paper in one of the entomology journals. I'd be glad to advise you if you give it a try. But of course that's just a suggestion. There are a hundred things you might want to do more, at Nokobee, or around here, or anywhere. But does that sound at all interesting to you?"
Raff said, "Yessir, you bet it does, it really does. I think I'd like to keep working on the anthills."
When they met later in his office, Needham pressed his earlier suggestion. "This is an interesting species. We're really just beginning to study ants properly. And don't let anybody tell you they aren't important. Keep in mind that ants not only rule the insect world, but societies like the ones at Nokobee are the most complicated on earth next to humans."
In effect, Needham had said to Raff, like a prince of old to an explorer, Go out and search. Everything you find will be important. Record it. Then come back here and report it, to me, and to all.
Needham knew what he was doing. He understood that nothing propels the postadolescent mind more powerfully than to be told by someone in authority, You do this well, you like doing it, it is interesting and important. So I hereby commission you to take charge. Pursue this as far as you are able. Make it your special mission.
Such was the spirit, Needham knew, that has driven much of the history of biology. Carl Linnaeus, the great eighteenth-century Swedish botanist and founder of biological classification, profited by it. He instructed his best students--his "Apostles," he called them--to be his eyes and hands as they visited foreign lands. And so seventeen gifted young men went forth variously to the Levant, Japan, South America, and the North American colonies, to be the first to collect the plants, to study them, and to bring specimens back to Europe for further research by all generations into the future.
When Charles Darwin was twenty-two years old, he was told,