108 Union Bay 



friend have thought of that living javelin, the kingfisher, 

 which regularly launches itself from considerable heights to 

 pick up almost certainly the minnow beneath the surface of 

 the water? And there is that self-guided bomb, the osprey, 

 which can drop from heights of a quarter of a mile and 

 strike the fish necessary for food to maintain itself and its 

 family. 



As I walked along to the gate I watched the contestants, 

 the home squad happy, the visitors downcast, not so much 

 by the defeat as by the fact that they had been badly out- 

 classed. Fine looking fellows all, strong, intelligent, and in 

 splendid condition. But it was their intelligence and not their 

 physical ability that made them superior to the birds and the 

 wild mammals. My friend had been right when he said that 

 I would not see anything in the marsh like the contests I had 

 seen in the stadium. Grace, as demonstrated by the animals, 

 is unknown to man. Man is physically incapable of duplicat- 

 ing the speed and accuracy of such movements as the spring 

 of the mink, the dive of the otter, the right-about turns of 

 the weasel, the jumping ability of some of the mice. Perhaps 

 in the ages when man had been forced to depend for food 

 and survival on physical adroitness, he, too, had been an 

 athletic professional adequately using his own physical 

 equipment to compete with other animals. But he has de- 

 pended more and more on mechanical contrivances designed 

 by his own ingenuity until now his speed can be surpassed 

 by almost every creature in the marsh and his strength and 

 ability are inferior. 



On every trip to the marsh I saw spectacular skill demon- 

 strated, not by sport-loving amateurs, but by professionals 

 who must win their events or perish, sometimes immediately, 

 but always eventually. When a Cooper hawk dashed into a 

 flock of chickadees there was no opportunity for them to 

 warm up for the getaway, to place themselves in specially 

 prepared positions and in convenient starting devices. An 



