THE BAY OF BUTTERFLIES 273 
mate satisfaction may have been, the attraction 
was something transcending humidity, aridity, or 
immediate possibility of attainment. It was a 
definite cosmic point, a geographical focus, 
which, to my eyes and understanding, was unrea- 
sonable, unsuitable, and inexplicable. 
As I watched the restless water and the but-. 
terflies striving to find a way down through it to 
the only desired patches of sand in the world, 
there arose a fine, thin humming, seeping up 
through the very waves, and I knew the singing 
catfish were following the tide shoreward. And 
as I considered my vast ignorance of what it all 
meant, of how little I could ever convey of the 
significance of the happenings in the Bay of 
Butterflies, I felt that it would have been far bet- 
ter for all of my green ink to have trickled down 
through the grains of sand. 
