ACTS WELL ITS PART 223 



as "the Fishermen's Chorus." The motive is taken up 

 nearer among the coco-nuts, and is in full swing in the pools 

 below the terrace. Thence the sound passes on through 

 the wattles and bloodwoods to the narrow tea-tree swamp 

 lined with dwarf bamboos and dies in echoes in the distance. 

 A brief interlude, and the pandanus choir gives voice again, 

 stronger and resonant ; the companions of the coco-nuts 

 join lustily, the strain reverberates from the wet lands below, 

 resounds through the forest, and is lost in the mellow dis- 

 tance of the tea-trees. And so the sound rises and falls, swells 

 and dwindles away in chords and harmonies, until presently 

 every amphibian is alert and tremulous with emotion and 

 emulation. If an attempt is made to analyse the music, 

 you may discover sounds sharp as those of the fife, deep and 

 hollow as drum-beats, sonorous and acrid, tinny and mellow. 

 I have heard that those who are not disciples of Wagner 

 find it necessary to undergo a process of education ere they 

 acquire an unaffected taste for the composer's masterpieces. 

 Possibly those who have not listened, wet season after wet 

 season, to the light-hearted chant, may be inclined to 

 suggest that there can be no such thing as music in the 

 panting bellows of a North Queensland frog. But music 

 " is of a relative nature, and what is harmony to one ear 

 may be dissonance to another." The Chinese opera proves 

 that " nations do not always express the same passions by 

 the same sounds." If one obtains music from the clang and 

 clamour of full-throated frogs, may it not be because his 

 ears are more attuned to natural than to artificial harmonies, 

 not because of any defect in, or aberration of, hearing, or 

 any lack of melody on the part of the frogs ? 



ACTS WELL ITS PART 



" A living drollery ! Now I will believe 

 That there are unicorns ; that in Arabia 

 There is one tree, the phrenix throne ; one phoenix 

 At this hour reigning." 



Few insects repay observation better than the mantis 

 and the stick insect, which generally, of most voracious 



