Raff was very tired at this day's end, and his thoughts drew inward to become reverie. The voices of the boys, jumbling together, faded into white noise. Only an occasional loud laugh or whoop broke through their collective monotone. He had returned to Nokobee to see this small world that managed to hold together perfectly while human forces raged around it. This time it was a crowd of boys who made a visit possible, albeit unknowingly.
No matter, it was done. Nokobee was here, now and forever, living and whole and serene as he had first found it in his childhood. This was his sacred place, just as his immemorial ancestors had their sacred places. Nokobee was a habitat of infinite knowledge and mystery, beyond the reach of the meager human brain, as were the habitats of his ancestors. It was his island in a meaningless sea. Because Nokobee survived, he survived. Because it preserved its meaning, he preserved his meaning. Nokobee had granted him these precious gifts. Now it would heal him. In return, he had restored its immortality, and eternal youth, and the continuity of its deep history.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FOR SUGGESTING I write this book and for his wise counsel throughout its writing, I am extremely grateful to my editor, Robert Weil. For additional advice and help, I fervently thank William Finch, Kathleen M. Horton, D. Bruce Means, Anne Semmes, James Stone, Walter Tschinkel, and Irene K. Wilson. I owe much to Dave Cole for his close and expert editing of the final text. David Cain drew the map, placing Nokobee County with pleasing exactitude within the preexisting geography of South Alabama. And not least, I thank my literary agent, John Taylor (Ike) Williams, who with expertise, friendship, and refreshing good humor has aided me through the development of this and much of my earlier published work.
"The Anthill Chronicles," a section of the present narrative, is derived from scientific information about several real ant species compounded into one, documented individually, for example, by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson in The Ants (1990) and The Superorganism (2009). It is written in a manner that presents the lives of these insects, as exactly as possible, from the ants' point of view.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EDWARD O. WILSON is regarded as one of the world's leading biologists and naturalists. He grew up in South Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, where as a boy he spent much of his time exploring the region's forests and swamps, collecting snakes, butterflies, and ants--the latter to become his lifelong specialty. Descended on both sides from families that came to Alabama before the Civil War, Wilson developed a deep love of the history and natural environment of his native state, and especially of the region that made the setting for the present story. After graduating from the University of Alabama, he traveled to Harvard University to earn a doctorate in biology. As a professor there (now emeritus) he became a pioneering researcher on the environment, animal behavior, communication, and biodiversity. His many awards in science include the U.S. National Medal of Science and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences--the latter the most prestigious award given in ecology. In letters he won two Pulitzer Prizes in nonfiction, for On Human Nature (1978) and, with Bert Holldobler, The Ants (1990). In recent years he has spent much of his time on issues of global conservation, while returning often to the South of his childhood and to the wildlands that nurtured his spirit.
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