36 TROPIC DAYS 



cowed, the bird was now confronted by a more awful 

 peril than that of the sea. A bedraggled crest indicated 

 horror at the steady approach of the enemy man, whose 

 presence stimulated the sodden bird to such extra- 

 ordinary efforts that it succeeded in rising and in making 

 slow, low flight to the beach. 



At dawn a bat flew into a spider's web spun during 

 the night, the extremities of the wings being so entangled 

 that struggling was almost 'impossible. A big spider 

 pounced on it. Not a minute elapsed from the entangle- 

 ment until the bat was released, but the venom of the 

 spider had done its work. There was not a sign of life. 

 The spider is dark grey in colour, bloated of body, 

 slothful, and of most retiring disposition. Huddled up 

 into almost spherical form, it lurks in dark places, 

 which it soon makes insanitary. In the open it crouches 

 among dead leaves which have gathered in the fork of 

 a tree, and will construct a web which spans the coco- 

 nut avenue with its stays. From one aspect its rotund 

 body invites a good-humoured smile, for the marking 

 exactly simulates the features of a tabby cat, well fed, 

 sleepy, and in placid mood. Venom of virulence to 

 kill a bat almost instantly would be severe enough to 

 a human being. This dirty, obese spider deserves little 

 consideration at the hand of man. 



A moonless, cloudless night. The little praam takes 

 the ground in the bay a few yards from the beach, and 

 in the midst of a constellation of "jelly-fishes " spherical 

 in form and varying in size. The larger are so many 

 pale blue orbs floating lazily in a luminous mist, the only 

 visible manifestation of life being a delicate but rhyth- 

 mical deepening of the central hue. The wash of my 

 wading seems not to affect them. I become conscious 

 of the sudden appearance and swift disappearance of 

 lesser spheres of startling brilliance. They emerge from 



