SNAIL FOLK 



tected with hard shells from danger, all vegetarians. 

 The rocks should be covered with untold hosts of 

 them, as safe in the battle of life as a knight in full 

 armor would be in an encounter with half a dozen 

 serfs. 



But the law of compensation is always at work, 

 and there can be no aces up the sleeve in the game 

 with Nature. The stakes are Life or Death and too 

 often the dice seem loaded in favor of Mung. Here 

 is an unusually large, strong limpet. His vacuum 

 grip defies the smash of waves ; his constitution can 

 withstand the occasional drenchings and submer- 

 sions of fresh rain water; his gills hold sufficient 

 store of salt water to last through prolonged heat 

 droughts. Yet one day, without warning, there oc- 

 curs whatever, in limpet language, stands for ex- 

 plosion, eruption, tornado, cyclone — his house is 

 ripped from its foundation, he disappears down a 

 great throat, and he is troubled no more by the self- 

 sufficient smugness of too great success: And the 

 oystercatcher, the great black and white bird, wipes 

 her scarlet, knifelike beak on the nearest rock, and 

 trots unconcernedly on to the next limpet or mussel 

 or chiton. Any sympathy for the snail is leavened 

 by thoughts of the untold generations of oyster- 

 catchers during which the shape, pattern, thinness, 

 sharpness, verticalness of their beak blades have 

 developed hand in hand with habit and skill. Ad- 

 miration of a specialist in attack must always exceed 

 concern for the safety of a pacifist. 



One more action and reaction in the life of a 



217 



