286 Union Bay 



thought that further investigation was necessary to justify 

 the continuance of the bounty on the harbor seal. Thus what 

 looks like a problem of simple predation becomes a compli- 

 cated and doubtful affair. 



There is a great advantage in confining much attention to 

 one small marsh. It lies close to my home. I can see the work- 

 ings of the whole, which is an advantage not found in a large 

 area. If desirable, I can visit and revisit it two or three times 

 in one day. I think of what Browning said in "Pisgah 

 Sights": 



Peering and prying 

 How I see all of it 

 Life there, outlying. 



If, in my visits, I think much of predation, it is because I 

 cannot escape it. It is always about me. I paddle my canoe 

 through a community where predation is the rule and where 

 all living things are affected by it. The balance of nature of 

 which we hear so much means, crudely defined, that all 

 forms of community life have a tendency to adjust them- 

 selves in an interlocking and smooth-running organization. 

 In this community, as in most others, many members eat, or 

 are eaten by other members, or both. The individuals perish 

 but the species and community move on. The process is con- 

 stant: a fly, of a sort which resembles a bee, moves over the 

 surface of a lily pad and lunches on small insects which dot 

 the leaf. Sated, it departs. There is the soft movement of 

 wings, the flash of a small bird, and a barn swallow neatly 

 annexes the fly. Tomorrow some hawk may take the swallow. 

 Such is the present pattern of marsh life. Almost certainly it 

 has been the pattern for centuries. Interference with it may 

 have strange consequences. Spread the new insect killers in 

 the marsh and all may be well if it is done carefully, but im- 

 proper methods may involve the elimination of the useful as 

 well as the injurious, the removal of the insect food of the 



