Her example: Some engineers want a railroad with three trains, so they build nine thousand trains and set them hurtling down the track toward each other, until only three are left.She compares the way nature works with the way engineers work, just to highlight the inefficiency of it all.The fact that more individuals die than live makes her wonder if nature is 'dealing in life, or in death.'.Here's her big question: If you're creating species, and you want a certain number of individuals to survive, why not just create the number you want and make them hardier, rather than throwing out a billion eggs and hoping a few live?.Sometimes the cats get carried away licking away the umbilical cords of their newborns and just… well, chow down. Among the creatures who do: lacewing bugs and big cats. Human parents generally don't eat their young, though.She thinks about how each of those rats-or barnacles, or worms, or starlings-is an individual being, no less worthy of consideration than an equal number of human babies.What's more upsetting, Dillard asks-acres of rats, or acres of tulips? prolific reproduction) of animals is way more disturbing than that of plants. As the bamboo grows, which takes about 24 hours, the person slowly gets impaled.

Basically, the torturers sharpen the ends of live bamboo plants and place them beneath a person suspended by his wrists and ankles.

There's a form of Chinese torture that harnesses the ability of bamboo to grow three feet overnight.

Even plants can be creepy, what with their ability to grow really big, really fast.

There are a bunch of species that cast a bajillion eggs into the world on the off chance that one or two will survive.

Because, seriously, what's with all the death?.

The nightmare makes Dillard reassess her overly idealistic conception of nature.

You'd probably wake up screaming, too, if you dreamed your bed was full of fish.

We begin with a nightmare: Dillard dreams she's watching luna moths mate, the female moth lays eggs all over her bed, the eggs hatch… and fish come out.the via negativa, so get ready to see just how messed-up Tinker Creek really is. We're starting the dark half of the book here, a.k.a.

Pilgrim at tinker creek sparknotes