THE WAY OF ‘THE WILD 55 
Besides, these calamities of climate and season, of fire and flood, 
are occasional and local in their happening, not constant and 
general, so that in a large sense the free and unrestricted in- 
crease of earth’s millions is thrown upon the world for main- 
tenance, and there is not enough. The only alternative is a 
Fic. 8. Ina fight against snow and cold the bison can hold his own 
wholesale destruction of individuals by starvation, in which the 
strongest alone survive. 
The competition for food is, therefore, the chief element in 
the struggle for existence. There is no common food supply 
for all species, but everything, from the biggest to the littlest, 
from the strongest to the weakest, lives upon its neighbor, and 
it is literally true that the chief concern of each inhabitant of 
the wild, and the one upon which he bestows most of his time 
and his principal attention, is to secure something to eat and to 
avoid, in return, being eaten himself. With one eye on his prey 
and the other on his enemy he balances his chances and gambles 
