THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 203 



I retired to a small bluff overlooking the waterway and sank 

 out of sight on the sand to rest between two ghostly green sea- 

 lavender bushes. The egret was sheer beauty. Dressed in plum- 

 age of spotless white, the bird gracefully floated down to 

 landing on the edge of the water and poised expectantly, then 

 slowly and elegantly stalked along the edge of the mangroves. 

 Egrets are among the most artistic of living birds; they suggest 

 purity and chasteness, both in hue and line; their lives are a 

 succession of beautiful poses. 



The egret earned a brief place in the chain of existence I 

 was pursuing when with a lightning jab of its beak it im- 

 paled a mangrove crab, either the one that barbarously tore the 

 Panopeus to pieces or one of its cousins several times removed, 

 and devoured it. The bird was as merciless as the crab had been 

 but its hunger was understandable; it did not indulge in any 

 unnecessary tortures. And, having satisfied its appetite, it passed 

 from the sphere of my observation by springing lightly into 

 the air and flapping away on snowy pinions. 



The departure of the egret put an end for the moment to 

 my little game of what-comes-next. It also set the stage for 

 the interweaving of the next strand. Because, but for the going 

 of the bird, I would not have become acquainted with the 

 blenny, nor would the great philosophical principle which the 

 blenny illustrated have entered the course of the web which 

 was being woven thread by thread. Thinking that the flight 

 ended the search I walked over to the point where the egret 

 had last stood and looked at its broad triangular tracks thread- 

 ing along the edge of the roots. They were evenly spaced until 

 they reached the point where the mangrove crab had met its 

 Nemesis. Here they left the silty mud and continued into a 

 shallow pool of water between a clump of mangroves where 

 they terminated abruptly under water at the place where the 



