A RAVISHED NURSERY 183 



by force of numbers and slowly eaten alive by animals 

 so far inferior in the scale. It is a sententious 

 commonplace that Nature is cruel, and men sometimes 

 repeat the aphorism as if half approving Nature for 

 justifying certain doctrines about original sin, though 

 it is doubtful whether those who talk so complacently 

 about Nature's cruelty ever realise the facts. And 

 perhaps it is well that this is so, for even if all of us 

 cannot understand how Nature's apparent disregard 

 of the individual is really only disguised beneficence, 

 yet it is bad for anyone's moral health to consider too 

 curiously the melancholy question, — 



" Are God and Nature then at strife, 



That Nature lends such evil dreams, — 

 So careful of the type she seems, 

 So careless of the single life ? " 



It is better not to look too closely at the tooth 

 and claw red with ravine, and therefore we must feel 

 glad that these, what may without improper levity 

 be called finishing schools for young sea-birds, where 

 Nature's methods are so very obvious and unadorned, 

 are as a rule situated where few people can ever see 

 them. 



Though I had not the heart to kill any of the 

 old birds as specimens— for, like Quentin Durward's 

 uncle, I do not care to kill ''even a dog, unless it 

 were in hot assault or pursuit, or upon defiance given, 

 or such like " — yet I brought away some of the best 



