It was a pleasant life they led. By day, while the warm sun shone, they basked below the mud. At night they feasted on the shoals of shrimps and jointed darting creatures that filled the water over them. As they slowly moved from bank to bank their upper skins changed colour with the colour of the floor on which they fed, and thus securely hid them from their enemies. One day the whitebait, grown now to little herrings, came up the estuary. "Why, there is Fanny Flatface," said one. Her sister flounders rose beside her. The herrings gaped in wonder. "So that was just your way of growing up!" they said at last. "Just my way of growing up," said Fanny cheerfully. IX.--THE OYSTER BABIES The Oyster-Mother was talking to her babies. "You are leaving me to make your own way in the sea," she said. "Keep in mind what I have so often told you, that everybody bigger than yourself is an enemy to be avoided. Here is something else to remember. When you are tired of swimming about, and wish to settle down to grow your shells, choose a clean gravelly bank or a firm rock floor. Sand or mud, if you choose those, would sift into your shells with every tide, and you would soon be choked. And when your shells are made, never forget that an oyster's chief concern in life is to know when to shut up. A moment too late in that, and life is over for you." The babies swam out of the shell. This was not their first expedition, but in former times they had stayed near their mother, ready to slip in at the first scent of danger. Now they were to take care of themselves. No babies could have looked less fitted to do it. So tiny were they that the whole three hundred of them, placed head to tail in a line, would not have measured longer than one's middle finger. Boneless, shell-less, weaponless, their only safeguard was their water-like transparency. It seemed impossible that creatures so tender could live in the savage sea, where hungry monsters roamed incessantly in search of prey. Yet they were not afraid. Perhaps they were too young to think. Up they went. Near the surface of the sea they met a shoal of cousin babies. "We are going to travel before we settle down," said the cousins. "Will you join our party?" "We shall be delighted," said the babies.