To EAT AND NOT BE EATEN. 147 



of existence in mind, else they go down in the 

 great struggle forever going on about them. 



The red-eyed vireo, uttering his joyful ditty 

 so unceasingly in the branches of the white oak 

 above my head, hunts bugs for breakfast as he 

 hops and sings. At the same time his weather 

 eye is kept open for hawk, butcher bird or 

 coiled cow snake ready to strike. In the pen- 

 sile nest, suspended from a branch of a nearby 

 maple, his mate broods over a second sitting of 

 eggs and listens to his never-ending call of love. 

 Occasionally he flits to her with some juicy 

 dainty of worm or fly, which while feeding or 

 mating did not exercise sufficient vigilance and 

 so has lost its place among the living things of 

 earth. 



Man and the domestic animals are the only 

 forms of life which are in part exempt from this 

 eternal vigilance of outlook, and this only in a 

 so-called civilized land. Even here the hen 

 must ever be on the look-out for the hawk, the 

 mink or the fox, and a kitten lost its life on the 

 floor of the farm kitchen a few nights ago at 

 the mouth of a blood-sucking weasel. To eat 



