46 I N A G U A 



any formol to preserve it and we would probably be here for 

 a long time anyway. Plenty of time for that later. 



But the Hzard brought me a stirring idea. This island was our 

 portion. The sailing of the isles of the Indies was not to be. Our 

 scientific program was finished— before it had even started. Yet 

 here at our very feet was unexplored territory. On this island 

 should exist a complete cosmos of living things, an entity of 

 moving, crawling, creeping creatures, all living in the complex 

 ecological web of island life. We should learn everything that 

 was to be known about this island, this bit of water-enclosed 

 earth-matter. The mere fact that it was an island, that the 

 creatures and animals were imprisoned, held fast by the sur- 

 rounding ocean, made the idea more intriguing. That is part 

 of the charm of islands, everything is so compact. Carried away 

 with the notion, I walked on. Great purple land crabs scuttled 

 from among the grasses and, like the lizards, dashed for shelter. 

 What was their niche in the scheme of island life? And those 

 snails hanging in clusters on the grass stems? What were they 

 doing and why were they on the grasses? 



This was our portion, earth and sea and sky, the reef beyond 

 the land's edge, a world in itself, the pale green of the lagoons 

 —even as I looked a vaguely moving shadow showed the under- 

 water trail of a giant sea turtle returning from an early morn- 

 ing egg-laying. And the beach itself, the pulsing, moving edge 

 of the sea, that belongs neither to the land nor to the sea, but 

 alternately to one and then the other. These were our portion, 

 these and the soil beyond. 



Then, as if in gentle retribution for the egotism of thinking 

 that we should learn everything^ 2. hummingbird swooped out 

 of a cluster of prickly-pear and hung before my face. Like an 

 angry bee it buzzed, humming and jerking its tail feathers. And 

 though the wings were an indelible blur, so swift was their 

 moving, every detail of the body feathering was visible. Swiftly 



