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wasps eat flies only. Burl's furtive tribe
feared them but little.
Bees were similarly aloof. They were hard-pressed for survival, those
bees. Few flowers bloomed, and they were reduced desperate
expedients: bubbling yeasts and fouler things, occasionally the
nectarless blooms of rank, giant cabbages. Burl knew the bees. They
droned overhead nearly as large as he, bulging eyes gazing at him with
abstracted preoccupation. And crickets, beetles, spiders--
Burl knew spiders! His grandfather had fallen prey to a hunting
tarantula, which had leaped with incredible ferocity from its excavated
tunnel in the earth. The vertical pit, two feet in diameter, went down 20
feet. At the bottom, the black-bellied monster waited for the tiny
sounds that would warn it of approaching prey (Lycosa fasciata).
Burl's grandfather had been careless, and his terrible shrieks as the
horrible monster darted from the pit and seized him had lingered
vaguely in Burl's mind ever since. Burl had seen, too, the monster webs
of another species of spider, and watched from afar as the huge,
misshapen creature sucked juices from a three-foot cricket entangled in
its trap.
Burl remembered the stripes of yellow, black, and silver crossing its
abodomen (Epiera fasciata). He had been fascinated by the struggles of
the imprisoned insect, coiled in a hopeless tangle of sticky, gummy
ropes the thickness of Burl's finger, cast about its body before the
spider attempted to approach.
Burl knew these dangers. They were part of his life. It was his and his
ancestors' accustomedness to them that made his existence possible. He
evaded them, and survived. A moment of carelessness, an instant's
relaxation of his habitual caution, and he would be one with his

forebears, forgotten meals of long-dead, inhuman monsters.
Three days before, Burl had crouched behind a bulky, shapeless fungus,
watching a furious duel between two huge horned beetles. Their jaws,
gaping wide, clicked and clashed on each other's armor. Their legs
crashed like cymbals as their polished surfaces ground and struck each
other. They fought over some particularly attractive bit of carrion.
Burl had watched until a gaping orifice appeared in the armor of the
smaller beetle. It uttered a shrill cry, or seemed to. The noise was,
actually, the tearing of the horny stuff beneath the jaws of its victorious
adversary.
The wounded beetle's struggles weakened. At last it collapsed, and the
conqueror placidly began to eat the conquered--alive.
After the meal was finished, Burl approached the scene with caution.
An ant, forerunner of many, was already inspecting the carcass.
Burl usually ignored ants. They were stupid, shortsighted insects, not
hunters. Save when attacked, they offered no injury. They were
scavengers, seeking the dead and dying, but became dangerous, vicious
opponents if their prey were questioned. They measured from three
inches, for tiny black ants, to a foot for large termites.
Burl heard the tiny clickings of their limbs as they approached. He
hastily seized the detached, sharp-pointed snout of the victim, and fled.
Later, he inspected his find curiosly. The victim had been a minotaur
beetle, with a sharp-pointed horn like that of a rhinocerous to reinforce
its offensive armament, already dangerous because of its wide jaws. A
beetle's jaws work side to side, instead of up and down, making its
protection complete in no less than three directions.
Burl examined the sharp, daggerlike instrument. He pricked his finger
on its point, and flung it aside as he crept to the hiding-place of his tribe.
They numbered only 20: four men, six women, the rest adolescents and
children.

Burl had wondered at the strange feelings that came over him when he
looked at one of the girls. She was younger--perhaps 18--and fleeter of
foot than he. They talked, sometimes, and Burl occasionally shared
with her an especially succulent find of foodstuffs.
The next morning Burl found the horn where he had thrown it, sticking
in the flabby side of a toadstool. He retrieved it, and gradually, far back
in his mind, an idea began to form. He sat awhile with the thing in his
hand, considering it with a faraway look in his eyes. From time to time
he stabbed at a toadstool, awkwardly, but with gathering skill. His
imagination began to work fitfully. He visualized himself stabbing food
as the larger beetle had stabbed the former owner of the weapon he now
possessed.
Burl could not imagine attacking one of the fighting insects. He could
only picture himself, dimly, stabbing something that was food with this
death-dealing thing. It was no longer than his arm and though clumsy
to the hand, an effective and terribly sharp implement.
He thought: Where was there food, food that lived, that would not fight
back? Presently he rose and made his way toward the tiny river.
Yellow-bellied newts swam in its waters. Aquatic larvae of