CHAPTER IX 



The Web of Island Life 



Every event in nature has its inception in the alteration of sub- 

 stance or change of action that preceded it. Spring is bom of 

 autumn; today's roses are nourished by the fragments of last 

 year's leaves; the liquid burble of a wren outside your door is 

 only the energy of yesterday's insects whose crushed and di- 

 gested bodies are transmuted into song and joy, into flight and 

 avian activity. Living comes of dying; a fallen tree is home 

 for myriads of boring beetles which would never have existed 

 but for the toppling of the trunk; the comforting chirp of 

 crickets, the haunting calls of whip-poor-wills, the mellow 

 droning of bees hurrying from flower to flower, flowers them- 

 selves, are only possible because last night, or last week or last 

 year something passed its time of usefulness and fell to earth, 

 or was devoured, or was dissolved into the elements from which 

 it came. Every flash of bright color from fur, scale, or feather, 

 the graceful movements of living things, the vibrant darting of 

 hummingbirds, the impelling sweep of migration, the slow ma- 

 jestic soaring of an eagle or albatross, the thud of pounding 

 hoofs, the curve of rippling fins, all these are made possible by 

 the perishing of some creature or plant, or because of the modi- 

 fication of some mineral or action of the elements. 



Living might be considered a chain, or, better yet, a mesh of 

 chain links, like the chain mail of the knights of long ago. Only 

 the simile is not quite complete for the mesh of the knights was 

 composed of a single metal, of bronze or silver or gold, accord- 

 ing to the station of the wearer. The chain mesh of organic 

 existence instead is of variegated mesh; a tangled web in which 



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