102 Union Bay 



recognize each little family group and saw the shrinkage 

 from an initial start of around a dozen down to ten, then to 

 seven or eight, and finally to only five or six trailing behind 

 her I realized that, while most people saw just the senti- 

 mental picture of a duck and her happy little family, its up- 

 bringing was grim business which bore heavily on the young. 



On the track and at the field events I met entirely different 

 conditions. There the competition did not concern itself 

 directly with life but with the sports of life. There the contest 

 was for the purpose of satisfying man's desire for physical 

 supremacy— his wish to run faster, to hurl the javelin farther, 

 or to jump higher or a greater distance, than his competitor. 



I had only to look about the field that rainy day to justify 

 this comparison between the track and the marsh. The cliff 

 swallows fluttered about and dipped into the damp clay to 

 obtain material for their nests in the window niches of the 

 athletic pavilion. Directly in front of me runners practiced 

 starts, so there was a continual bending and starting, bending 

 and starting— a continuity of effort not connected with sub- 

 sistence but with the hope that the resulting skill might en- 

 able them to beat their competitors, if only by a split second. 

 Just outside the fence, a pair of newly arrived flycatchers sat 

 on the tops of two willows and hurled themselves into space, 

 not to break a record, but because they had a void in their 

 tummies which they wished to fill. 



A slightly freshening wind brought in an increasing amount 

 of rain as the three milers— one local and two visitors— pulled 

 off their sweat shirts and stood in their shorts and track shirts. 

 I wondered how those cold rain drops and chill breezes af- 

 fected them. The gun sent them down their lanes with a 

 splashing that could have been mistaken for the beginning 

 of a swimming event. The fit and condition of track shoes 

 must have been an important factor on this day for the first 

 few strides on sodden ground filled them with moisture and 

 made traveling difficult. I noticed that one of the men, ap- 



