HAMMOCK NIGHTS 219 



since there is not the vestige of a breeze; but 

 faint odors arrive, become stronger, and die 

 away, or are wholly dissipated by an onrush of 

 others, so musky or so sweet that one can almost 

 taste them. These have their secret purposes, 

 since Nature is not wasteful. If she creates 

 beautiful things, it is to serve some ultimate end ; 

 it is her whim to walk in obscure paths, but her 

 goal is fixed and immutable. However, her de- 

 signs are hidden and not easy to decipher; at 

 best, one achieves, not knowledge, but a few iso- 

 lated facts. 



Sport in a hammock might, by the casual 

 thinker, be considered as limited to dreams of the 

 hunt and chase. Yet I have found at my dis- 

 posal a score of amusements. When the dusk 

 has just settled down, and the little bats fill every 

 glade in the forest, a box of beetles or grasshop- 

 pers — or even bits of chopped meat — offers the 

 possibility of a new and neglected sport, in effect 

 the inversion of baiting a school of fish. Toss a 

 grasshopper into the air and he has only time to 

 spread his wings for a parachute to earth, when 

 a bat swoops past so quickly that the eyes refuse 

 to see any single effort — but the grasshopper has 

 vanished. As for the piece of meat, it is drawn 



