THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 191 



had arrived on Inagua in similar manner? After I returned from 

 the trip around the island I spent several days shooting any birds 

 I saw in prolonged and direct flight and examined their bills, 

 feet and stomachs for organisms. From the feet and legs of 

 sixteen spotted sandpipers which arrived from the direction of 

 Mariguana I rinsed and scrubbed into a dish of sterile water 

 enough mud to cover an area the size of my little fingernail; 

 from this earth I separated exactly eleven seeds visible to the 

 naked eye; two species of beautifully geometric desmids, mi- 

 croscopic green algaes which probably had come from a pond 

 much fresher in content than the bitter sahne lakes of Inagua, 

 since most of these were so laden with chemical as to inhibit the 

 growth of these primitive plants; and a number of amoeba-like 

 organisms which my limited protozoology prevented me from 

 identifying. I tried to sprout the eleven seeds but they all failed 

 to grow except one which perished in birth, so to speak, for 

 as soon as it gave signs of life it gave up the ghost and died. 

 The amoeba, however, did very well in an infusion and the 

 desmids flourished in a glass of water from the contents of 

 my diminishing barrel. When one considers the vast number 

 of sandpipers and other birds which each year sweep down 

 through the Bahamas on the winter migration from North 

 America, and considers the tremendous number of seeds, spores, 

 microscopic algaes and one-celled animals that must be carried 

 on their feet, tucked in crevices between their claws, under 

 scales or clinging to their bills, the wonder is not that there 

 are so many animals and plants on Inagua but that there are 

 so few. 



I do not believe the average of eleven seeds, two algaes and 

 one amoeba per sixteen birds across the water is exceptionally 

 high, for from the corpse of one little green heron whose legs 

 were caked with mud I took 78 separate seeds provided with 

 downy strands of whitish silk similar to the fluff of the cat-tails. 



