"Dire and parlous was the fight that was fought."

With logic as absolute as that of the grape that can "the two-and-twenty
jarring sects confute," Nature sets at naught the most ancient of axioms.
How obvious is it that the lesser cannot contain the greater! Yet that
Nature under certain circumstances blandly puts her thumb unto her nose
and spreads her fingers out even at that irrefragable postulate, let this
plain statement of fact stand proof.

Where the grass was comparatively sparse a little lizard, upon whose
bronze head the sunlight glistened, sighted on a chip a lumbering "March"
fly dreaming of blood, and with a dash that almost eluded observation
seized and shook it. With many sore gulps and excessive straining--for the
lizard was young and tender--the tough old fly was swallowed. While the
lizard licked its jaws and twirled its tail with an air of foppish
self-concern and haughty pride, a withered leaf not three inches away
stirred without apparent cause, and in a flash a tiny death adder
grappled the lizard by the waist. The grey leaf had screened its
approach.

Both rolled over and over, struggling violently. For a minute or two
there was such an intertwining and confusion of sinuous bodies that it
was impossible to distinguish one from the other. The grip of the death
adder was not to be lightly shaken off. When "time" was called, the
truce lasted several minutes. Then the wrestling was continued in a
miniature cyclone of sand and grass-chips. All the energy was on the part
of the lizard. The death-adder kept on doing nothing in a dreadfully
determined way. In fighting weight the combatants seemed to be fairly