The Track Near the Marsh 107 



golf amateurs had said a few days before: the good average 

 professional is about five strokes better than the good average 

 amateur. The principle is true everywhere and the difference 

 varies only in percentage. The men had performed with the 

 maximum grace and skill to be expected from those who were 

 not constantly spurred on by the relentless necessity for 

 food and the successful avoidance of one's enemies. The per- 

 formances I saw in the marsh were not by amateurs but by 

 creatures which had practiced professionalism from birth. 

 These wild animals were not like the collegiate amateurs 

 who could, if they felt their inability to perform properly, 

 still continue as a substitute or a member of a secondary 

 team, or even quit altogether. There was no substitute for 

 efficiency in the marsh, no place where the inefficient could 

 go, no hope that it could exist on a plane lower than that of 

 the others of its kind. Inefficiency meant the quick extinction 

 of the individual, the loss of its life through alert predators, 

 or it meant starvation through inability to compete for food 

 and territory. 



I thought of the high hurdlers who had put on such a 

 beautiful demonstration under the trying conditions of wet 

 winds, water-covered lanes, and slippery footing— everything 

 that could be expected under the standards of men, but not to 

 be compared to the ordinary daily feeding evolutions of the 

 black swifts whose food is taken entirely in flight. Their life 

 away from the nest is given entirely to the executions of 

 tremendous swings, abrupt turns, and all the other maneuvers 

 necessary for the capture of fast-flying victims. These birds 

 spend their active life in this pursuit, travel hundreds of miles 

 each day with a skill that I have never seen excelled by any 

 other thing, and stop only to feed their young or when night 

 prevents further hunting. They are professionals whose life 

 depends on their athletic ability. 



The marsh can present nothing exactly like the powerful 

 throw that had won the javelin event, but what would my 



