CHAPTER VI 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 



TV/TATTHEW Arnold, in a well - remembered 

 •^^ ■*- line, describes a bird in Kensington Gar- 

 dens '* deep in its unknown day's employ." But, 

 peace to the poet, its employ is all too certain. 

 Its day is spent in struggling to get a living ; and 

 a very hard day it is. It awoke at daybreak and 

 set out to catch its morning meal ; but another 

 bird was awake before it, and it lost its chance. 

 With fifty other breakfastless birds, it had to bide 

 its time, to scour the country; to prospect the trees, 

 the grass, the ground ; to lie in ambush ; to attack 

 and be defeated ; to hope and be forestalled. At 

 every meal the same programme is gone through, 

 and every day. As the seasons change the pres- 

 sure becomes more keen. Its supplies are ex- 

 hausted, and it has to take wing for hundreds and 



thousands of miles to find new hunting-ground. 

 241 Q 



