Having developed a certain affection for the race by this time, I must say I had feelings of pity for these little ones, helplessly tossed in and out of death. They _are_ fragile, like the young of other animals. They will not last more than about three-quarters of a minute out of water. But they are not ones to know or care whether I think of them or not. They are parts of a great ordered hunger, and a vast provision for things. They are both victims and executioners, the feeders and the fed upon, in the intercommunication of every single plant and animal in the natural world. There is nothing for affection in that order perhaps, unless we conceive of it in terms of love as well as annihilation. I have followed them out and seen where their consistent motion, their automatic reaction to the waters they swim in, has brought them to grief. It serves for survival and also for disaster. When the young alewives get out to salt water on an ebb tide, they are not able to calculate how long it will last, or so we presume, and whether they should move out soon or stay behind. The result is that many are left stranded and wildly skittering in the rivulets that thread the sandy flats at extreme low tide. From the time the outgoing waters of Paine’s Creek begin to get low, they are also subject to attack by crowds of herons and gulls--but supposing they survive that and still have a chance in a matter of an hour or an hour and a half to reach deeper water? It is very often the case that because of their habit of heading back against the current they delay too long and lose their chance of escape. They are caught high and dry on the sand or in water so shallow that they are unable to move on, and so are easy prey for the birds. I have followed them through low water and seen them turn back, just as they had a chance to follow one waning current to join another and so out to safety; but when I use the word safety I have to remind myself that the flow goes where it will. Now it is possible that you might interpret this behavior as a reluctance to leave the inland waters. They have a drive in them to go to salt water eventually, but they may be in no hurry. In some areas they stay in estuaries or tributaries for a long time. At Paine’s Creek and the channel above it they may have no alternative but to be carried out on the ebb tide. When they finally reach Cape Cod Bay they probably school in fairly shallow shoal areas where the water is warmest, inviting bass or bluefish of course, to “come and get it.”