THE STARFISH'S STORY. 161

church, it had a throat so narrow and small that a herring
could not have swam down it. ‘Come close to me, my little
dear, and you will feel that I am warm—while fishes are cold;
and I take care of my baby, instead of just laying eggs about
the place—anyhow—and letting them shift for themselves as
your precious fishes do—nice mothers they must be!”

Here the whale rolled round and shovelled as much water
into its lower jaw as would fill a hundred buckets; then,
closing its mouth, sent it all hissing out through a fringe of
whalebone, which it used as a sort of strainer. The torrent
from the whale’s mouth sent the starfish spinning away—but
the whale invited it back.

‘“Come near me—don't be afraid!” she said.

‘But perhaps you will eat me if I do,” said the starfish,
who did not know how small the whale’s throat was. ‘What
a lot of big fishes you must want when you are hungry!”

“Big fishes ?” said the whale. ‘Not at all. The smaller
the better to please me. I have no teeth to chew with—only
the whalebone net—and what would be the use of a big fish to
me, when I couldn't either bite it up or swallow it? I feed on
the smallest creatures I can find!”

The starfish quite sprang out of the water for joy when he
heard this; for he had already, he thought, found a fish which
was not a fish—now he was perhaps going to find an answer to
another question—what was the smallest living thing? Sure
enough the water was filled everywhere with swarms of the
tiniest beings, hardly large enough to be seen, which were
skipping, jerking, or rowing themselves about. Some of them
were so small, a single water-drop would have been to them a
world to swim in. These surely must be the smallest of all
the creatures alive—and those which the sunfish meant!

How many millions of them must it take to feed a whale!

iL