120 The Turtle 



and grow. Here they feed unmolested, and know that 

 their armour is hardening apace. Outside the little 

 patch of weed-enclosed sea they know that there is a 

 horde of hungry monsters waiting for them. But they 

 care not. Never until fully protected by their natural 

 armour do they knowingly leave those cheerful foodful 

 precincts. Yet it is true that occasionally straying 

 too near the thin edges of the submarine forest, a baby 

 Turtle does get gobbled up by a hungry fish. And why 

 not ? Paucity of imaginative power alone prevents 

 me from depicting the reign of terror inaugurated in 

 that scanty weed-space among its smaller denizens. 

 How can we live, I can imagine them crying, when deep 

 down in our most cherished fastnesses come these black 

 ravenous interlopers devouring us ? 



Here we must pause a moment to remember that 

 in the sea the interdependence is absolute, direct. 

 Every creature lives upon some other creature below 

 him (above in some few cases as yet but vaguely 

 determined), and we are horrified to see the incessant 

 warfare that is waged. But, to use an historic 

 phrase, ' let us clear our minds of cant.' Is not this 

 just as much a feature of the land as of the sea ? Do 

 not all living things of food value compulsorily contri- 

 bute their bodies to our upkeep ? Excepting of course 

 the vegetarian members of society, who prefer to take 

 their animal food-contribution at second hand. But 

 we stray from our Turtle. Presently he finds out that 

 his carapace is hard, and constitutes a perfect shelter 

 against all enemies, save those whose mouths are large 

 enough to take him in entire. And so ere long he bids 

 good-bye to the little weed-patch which has sheltered 

 him so long, and starts upon his voyage of life over the 

 trackless ocean. 



Now it does not appear with any degree of accuracy 



