The Sea-birds’ Nursery 
best to crawl inside bodily. And as 
cormorants from the very first are most 
voracious eaters, the number of fish re- 
quired to keep alive a whole family 
must be enormous. 
And the numbers of other fish-eating 
birds, though of smaller size and less 
hungry in appetite, must cause great 
destruction among the smaller fishes. 
Exactly the same struggle goes on in 
the sea as among the inhabitants of the 
ponds and the hedges, and wherever 
there is life at all. JI am not at all sure 
that there is not more of a struggle among 
the sea-creatures than there is anywhere 
else. They devour one another with 
great diligence whenever they have the 
chance, the big ones eating the small 
ones, even though they may be members 
of the same kind, or even of the same 
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