28 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 
It is fairly safe to say that no seashore animal 
ever says, what a man might say with a shark 
after him: “I shall be eaten.” Itis certain that 
none ever says: “I have been eaten.” There is 
grim truth in this saying about the conjuga- 
tion of the verb: To eat; but the truth is one- 
sided unless we remember that the animals 
are also conjugating the verb: To love, and 
often, also, the verb to conquer. ‘‘ Love” and 
“Hunger,” both in inverted commas, are the 
pivots on which all life swings. 
THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER 
Animate nature is run on what may be 
called a scheme of successive incarnations. 
Matter is always passing from one embodi- 
ment to another, and nothing is ever lost. The 
minute plants free in the water and the fixed 
seaweeds, great and small, all feed on the sea 
itself and the air which it holds in solution. 
They are bathed in a nutritive solution of salts 
and gases, which their living matter, with the 
help of the sunlight, lifts on to the plane of 
life. In technical language, they build up 
carbon-compounds by photo-synthesis. 
But animals get their food from the plants, 
