62 BOULDER REVERIES. 



its shelter. It may be the elytron of a beetle, 

 the chitinous skin of a grasshopper or cricket, 

 the moldering wing of a moth or butterfly or the 

 broken shell of a snail. It may be one of a 

 thousand or more different things, but it shows 

 where the life of a weaker went out in order 

 that a stronger might survive. It often shows 

 the exact spot where the deadly struggle took 

 place ; where mouse or shrew, or mole or snake, 

 or some carnivorous insect pounced upon some 

 creature lower in the scale of life. 7 Tis nature's 

 way, and here beneath these logs and stones, as 

 well as out upon the great wide plains, the bat- 

 tles are fought and won ; the weaker ever doing 

 its utmost to escape or to repel the attack, but 

 finally yielding up its only possession life in 

 order that the stronger may gain sustenance and 

 energy to prolong its existence. The human 

 tragedies which attract the attention of man- 

 kind and are heralded far and wide in the daily 

 papers, are a thousandfold fewer in number 

 and often less atrocious than those, mostly un- 

 known, which here take place that one of the 

 participants may survive and beget its kind 

 upon the face of earth. 



