170 THE STARFISH’S STORY.

into deep water and carry nets inside their mouths for catching
fishes smaller than themselves—perhaps they know!”

But the sprats only answered that they ate whatever they
could find—-small fry. The small fry, when the starfish asked
them, said that they fed on the same tiny beings that the whale
ate—he could see for himself that the water swarmed with
them.

The starfish watched these tiniest things for hours ;. they
were chasing and eating something in the water; something
smaller far than they ;—creatures which could not be seen ;—
minute beings which in their turn feasted upon others yet more
minute, which devoured living specks even tinier still, which—

But there is no end to it—people are able to find out a great
deal by looking through microscopes, but not quite everything.
They can only tell that the smallest of creatures which they
discover must be fed upon by those a degree less small; that
these, in their turn, are the food of others a little larger, which
are fed upon by the smaller fishes, such as the sprats. Sprats
are the food of herrings, and herrings are the food of the larger
fishes still, and also of men. So that we see plainly that we
could not have fish for breakfast without the hosts of sea-
creatures which seem to dwindle away in size to almost nothing
at all.

The starfish never learnt to shine, because of this riddle
which he could never find an answer to. He came back to tell
the king of the prawns about his failure, and the old fellow took
such a keen interest in the affair that he actually shot himself
backwards two feet out of his hole to look for a fish with
sharper eyes which should be able to find out the smallest
living creature that is, and he went straight into Jamie's fishing
net by mistake. So he was done for, and no one will ever reap
the advantage of what he might have found out. But the starfish