288 A BOOK-LOVER'S HOLIDAYS 



death or ravenously seeking to inflict death on 

 the weak. Nature is ruthless, and where her 

 sway is uncontested there is no peace save the 

 peace of death; and the fecund stream of life, 

 especially of life on the lower levels, flows like 

 an immense torrent out of non-existence for but 

 the briefest moment before the enormous ma- 

 jority of the beings composing it are engulfed in 

 the jaws of death, and again go out into the 

 shadow. 



Huge rays sprang out of the water and fell 

 back with a resounding splash. Devil-fish, 

 which made the rays look like dwarfs, swam 

 slowly near the surface; some had their mouths 

 wide open as they followed their prey. Globular 

 jellyfish, as big as pumpkins, with translucent 

 bodies, pulsed through the waters; little fishes 

 and crabs swam among their short, thick ten- 

 tacles and in between the waving walls into 

 which the body was divided. Once we saw the 

 head of a turtle above water; it was a logger- 

 head turtle, and the head was as large as 

 the head of a man; when I first saw it, above 

 the still water, I had no idea what it was. 



By noon we were among the islands of the 

 reservation. We had already passed other and 

 larger islands, for the most part well wooded. 

 On these there were great numbers of coons 



