TREE GROG 217 



Every tree is a fair, and all behave accordingly, chirp- 

 ing and whistling, humming and buzzing, flitting and 

 fluttering, in the unrestrained gaiety of holiday and feast- 

 day humour. Always an impertinent, interfering rascal, the 

 spangled drongo, under the exhilarating influence of 

 melaleuca nectar, degenerates into a blusterer. He could 

 not under any circumstances be a larrikin ; but the grateful 

 stimulant affects his naturally high spirits, and he is more 

 frolicsome and boisterous than ever. The path between 

 the coco-nuts to the beach passes close to two of the 

 biggest trees, and from each as I strolled along, one 

 sublime morning when the whole world was drenched with 

 whiffs, strong, sweet and spirity, a drongo, flushed with 

 excitement, flew down, bidding me begone in language that 

 I am fully persuaded was meant to provoke a breach of the 

 peace. The saucy bullies, the half-tipsy roysterers, tired of 

 domineering over every participator of the feast, dared to 

 publicly flout me, defiantly sweeping with their tails the air, 

 as an Irishman, " blue mouldy for want of a bateing," sweeps 

 the floor with his coat, and chattered and scolded in every 

 tone of elated bravado. The bibacious drongo can be as 

 demure as any. When he comes to dart among the eddy- 

 ing insects, glorying in the first cool gleams of the sunshine, 

 he will take his ease on a mango branch, make jerky bows 

 and flick the fine feathers of his tail, and " cheep " in timor- 

 ous accents. He is sober then, quite parsonified in 

 demeanour ; his speech " all in the set phrase of peace," and 

 would be scandalised by the mere mention of melaleuca 

 nectar. 



A professor of physiology asserts that rabbits are very 

 curious when under the influence of liquor, and that a 

 drunken kangaroo is brutally aggressive. The drongo is 

 merely pugnacious and noisy. Having heard of the 

 melancholy effects of over-indulgence in melaleuca nectar, 

 I was not at all disposed to judge of the misbehaviour 

 harshly or to take personal offence ; for the drongo is a 

 respectable bird, and the opportunities for excess come but 

 twice a year. Are not the tenses of intoxication infinite ? 



