2Z^&s%£m&s%2^&mg2g§M^£Z3*&*3gz 



I had beaten the buzzard; the other birds had 

 been frightened away; consequently, I had the 

 fish and the field to myself. I prepared at once to 

 make a careful examination for possible parasites 

 and other guests that might have been harbored 

 on its skin. 



The fish was intact, except for the eyes, which 

 had been picked out, I suspected, by the crows. 

 Indeed, I had once previously actually seen them 

 do this very thing in the case of some clumsily 

 swimming rays imprisoned between tides in the 

 shallow waters of the pools. In the present in- 

 stance, however, this atrocity was mitigated by the 

 fact that the angler had already been quite dead. 



That it had not been dead very long was appar- 

 ent from its condition. But how it had met its end, 

 how it had strayed from its native haunts on the 

 floor of the Atlantic to be cast up on the sands of 

 this sequestered spot, were problems hopeless of 

 any solution. The sea has many of these . . . 



II 



What possible interest can one have in a dead 

 fish? Well, of the entire number who chance to 

 peruse these lines, there will probably be but one 



[8] 



