ANCESTRAL SHADE 81 



flower-buds registered the date with almost almanac 

 exactitude. Then, as the rich red began to glow here 

 and there, and impatient small birds to assemble in 

 anticipation of the annual feast, the old inhabitants of 

 the Isle would comfort one another with reminiscences 

 of the "Oo-goo-ju," the nutmeg pigeon, which was wont 

 to congregate in such numbers that adjacent and 

 easily accessible isles were whitened. There would be 

 plenty of eggs then, and in a few weeks squabs quiveringly, 

 helplessly fat. 



It was a good tree, for it gave good tidings, and it 

 centralised the shelter of the Isle. Its blooms were 

 delightfully, dashingly red, and they lasted long that 

 is, if the camp the soil rectified by sun and rain 

 happened to be in residence, for then the sulphur- 

 crested cockatoos would be scared. Otherwise the 

 profligate birds would sever the heavy racemes of flower 

 in their eagerness for honey until the ground beneath 

 glowed with a furnace-hued shadow. But there would 

 be still plenty for the gay sun-birds and the honey- 

 eaters, while the grey goshawk would make the site of 

 regular call, for the bibulous lesser birds could not always 

 be on the alert, ready to dart into adjacent tea-trees. 

 The hawk would abide its time, and have occasion, after 

 its kind, to be grateful because of the tree and its 

 seductive nectar which translated artless little songsters 

 into shrill-tongued roysterers, careless of the ills of life, 

 or at least less watchful for the presence of crafty 

 enemies. Flying foxes would swoop into the tree at 

 sundown to squeak and gibber among its repellent 

 branches till dawn, when some, too full for flight, would 

 hang among the lower limbs all day, sleeping with eyes 

 veiled by leathery wings. 



For many a long day the bin-gum tolerated no under- 

 growth. Despotic over its territory, the shade was 



6 



