THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 205 



shallow places all around the island. 



The blenny stared fixedly in its comical way at the surging 

 minnows and did not move so much as a muscle. Even when 

 the struggling multitude swept over my bare toes and within 

 a few inches of its door it did not stir except to open and shut 

 its mouth rhythmically as though it were chewing a wad of 

 gum. When the crab claw was disposed of and the schools of 

 feasting fishes had gone I stooped and very gently thrust my 

 fingers toward the shell. The blenny stood its ground and it 

 was not until I actually touched its body that it consented to 

 retire into its den. Softly closing the valves I lifted the clam 

 out of water and withdrew to the beach. 



The bivalve contained a mass of fifty or more eggs all glued 

 tightly together on the bottom half of the shell. Closely curled 

 about these was the blenny. When I tried to pick it up it 

 wriggled loose and once again curled about the spawn. I even 

 held the opened shell in the water but the blenny would not 

 leave; the eggs were its charge and it was guarding them to 

 the last. 



My experimental chain had reached the final link, for I re- 

 turned the blenny and its eggs to the water to whatever fate 

 the mangrove lagoon might have for them. The blossoms and 

 their mysterious perfume, symbolizing the beginning of life, 

 had started me on a trail in which death and beauty and primi- 

 tive savagery were separate stations; the blenny and its eggs 

 pointed out a truth that I had very nearly missed. Nature is 

 cruel; she is wasteful; but she is also provident and kind and 

 prodigal. Like the blennies which guard their eggs when they 

 most need guarding, the young of the earth are protected in 

 their hours of need, or are provided with a sum of guiding 

 instinct, like those of the Sphaerodactylus lizards of my hut 

 which went their way fully equipped to meet the ways of lizard 

 life. Similarly, we are born with a mother's protecting arms 



