36 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 



on the beach countless numbers of creatures 

 that have come too near the shore. We have 

 seen a brownish line of millions of the pinhead- 

 like Noctiluca extending far along the sand. 



Sometimes there is an unexpected windfall 

 of food! Thus one writer tells us that a hur- 

 ricane lasting for days, at the time that a par- 

 ticular moth (called the nun) was swarming, 

 blew such numbers of these out to sea, that, 

 when they were washed up by the tide, their 

 dead bodies formed a wall 6^ feet broad and 

 6 feet high, which stretched for many miles 

 along the shore. The same kind of thing has 

 been noticed many times in warmer regions, 

 when the locusts were caught in a storm dur- 

 ing their migration. 



But there is one thing we must remember 

 about the abundant supply of food on the sea- 

 shore it is not very regular, and it never lasts 

 long at a time. The incoming tide may throw 

 it up one day and the outgoing tide may carry 

 it away the next carry it so far that it is 

 never brought back again. For if it gets be- 

 yond the shallow-water area it sinks to the 

 bottom at the "mud-line." It is not wasted 

 even then "Nature is ever a careful house- 

 keeper"; but it is no longer available for the 



