THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 199 



mud-colored hues. The lizard and the scorpion were not sur- 

 prising, for these are normal articles of burrowing owl diet; 

 the occurrence of the crab shell was beyond all expectation. 

 My single strand had now become three; two threads led land- 

 ward, the third towards the sea. Discarding the Hzard and the 

 scorpion, I cleaned off the remains of the crab, tucked it in a 

 vial, and shouldered the bag. 



Sometime durinor the night the burrowinop owl had ventured 



DO O 



somewhere along the coast and snatched the body of the crab 

 in passing. Just where was a puzzle. I searched along the beach 

 closely. There were no mud crabs in evidence. Still more puz- 

 zling was the fact that mud crabs seldom if ever venture in 

 open air; their bodies are not equipped for prolonged exposure. 

 The chain of events had led me from the why of the perfumed 

 bush to the hozo of the owl, two queries that confront the 

 naturalist constantly. How and why; the how is sometimes 

 answerable; the why almost never. 



I did not solve the question of how until a day later when I 

 swam across the beautiful green channel of Lantern Head more 

 than thirty miles from the place where I had seen the owl. In 

 the meantime the strand of the scorpion forced itself on my 

 attention. I was busy stripping the bark from some fallen palm 

 trunks looking for lizard eggs and for new lizards when I care- 

 lessly thrust my fingers into a crevice. Several unseen scorpions 

 occupied the crack and resented my interference. One an- 

 tagonistic individual nabbed me in the end of my index finger 

 with its tail and then scampered away to the shelter of some 

 undisturbed bark. With an exclamation of pain I hung on to the 

 injured member and gritted my teeth. The finger throbbed 

 violently and stung virulently. Momentarily I expected to see 

 my hand swell as the poison took effect. My first thought was 

 to get back to the settlement as quickly as possible, but then 

 I reflected that a much more sane course would be to take 



