Then again it will drape itself in its garment of invisibility and slide
cautiously along in search of its prey. Under the loose rocks and
detached lumps of coral for one live there will be scores of dead shells.
The whole field is strewn with the relics of perpetual conflict,
resolving and being resolved into original elements. We talk of the
strenuous life of men in cities. Go to a coral reef and see what the
struggle for existence really means. The very bulwarks of limestone are
honeycombed by tunnelling shells. A glossy black, torpedo-shaped creature
cuts a tomb for itself in the hard lime. Though it may burrow inches deep
with no readily visible inlet, cutting and grinding its cavity as it
develops in size and strength, yet it is not safe. Fate follows in
insignificant guise, drills a tiny hole through its shell, and the
toilsomely excavated refuge becomes a sepulchre. Even in the fastness of
the coral "that grim sergeant death is strict in his arrest." All is
strife--war to the death. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty
among men, what quality shall avert destruction where insatiable
cannibalism is the rule. There is but one creature that seems to make use
of the debris of the battlefield--the hermit crab (CAENOBITA), which but
half armoured must to avert extermination fit itself into an empty shell,
discarding as it grows each narrow habitation for a size larger.
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