Why is there so much hanging around and waiting, so much suspension in nature? It comes as an occasional surprise to us timekeepers. In the gull we suspect obliviousness, and yet it may be prompted by the demands of a space of water, light, air, stretching before and around it, in its being, of whose motion and sense we are scarcely aware. We see very little. I am told that the very sands we sit on are full of minute organisms. The visible life, perhaps in the form of a few beach fleas, represents an extremely small percentage of the life unseen, a condition which has its parallel in the soil. But a short walk or wade along the shore can give you proof enough, without the need of a nip from a crab, that the tidal grounds are covered and circulating with life, a life which in its marine forms might seem small, simple, primitive, and unallied with much that we landed mammals can understand. I cannot inquire much of the moon snail, blindly, slowly moving across the sands under the tidal waters, with its large foot feeling for a clam. It only reveals itself to me by outward acts and signs which do not seem to have much variety. A small hole, countersunk in a shell, is common proof that a moon snail has drilled in and then eaten the occupant. When you see a “sand collar,” which this animal forms of sand grains and eggs, you know another side of its existence. Perhaps that is all there is to it--eating and reproduction--the round shellfish mindlessly carrying out its destiny. If it says anything at all to me it is only out of undeciphered darkness, silence, and original need. A tiny, shrimplike animal hovers in the water, then darts over my foot, only describing itself to me by its quick motion, and that is all I know of it. It suddenly buries itself in the sandy bottom, where reflected sunlight makes golden nets, that stretch and tremble through the constantly flowing waters.