IN IDLE MOMENT 21 



season, and a newly matched pair, satisfied with an 

 ample meal, sit side by side on a branch to tell of their 

 love, and in language which, though it may lack tune- 

 fulness, has the outstanding quality of enthusiasm. 

 But why waste clamorous love-notes on a world busy 

 with breakfast ? The sportful, tail-flicking dandy flits 

 and alights so that he may address himself solely to 

 his delighted and accepting spouse, peering into her 

 reddish eyes the while, and in ecstasy proclaiming, in 

 tones as loud and unmusical as her own, that life over- 

 flows with joy when mutual admiration surcharges 

 the breast. 



The noise stays a company of metallic starlings in 

 headlong flight from the nest-laden tree in the forest 

 to the many-fruited jungle. Though they most con- 

 scientiously search the fronds of coco-nut palms for 

 insignificant grubs and caterpillars, starlings do not 

 hawk for insects. Held up by the excitement — for 

 by this time other birds have darted to the feast — the 

 starlings ahght among the plumes of the laburnum, 

 interrogating in acidulous tones, their black, burnished, 

 iridescent feathers and flame-hued eyes making a 

 picture of rare vividness and beauty. 



How thin becomes the throng ! Last night's shower, 

 the morning warmth of the soil, have brought forth 

 a gush of life that wheels and sparkles in the sun 

 and becomes bait for birds. Are droughts designed 

 by Nature to test endurance on the part of animal 

 and vegetable life? Leaves fall from evergreen trees 

 almost as completely as from the deciduous, and 

 even the jungle is thickly strewn, while every slight 

 hollow is filled with brittle debris where usually leaves 

 are limp with dampness and mould. The jungle has 

 lost, too, its rich, moist odours. Whiffs of the pleasant 

 earthy smell, telling of the decay of clean vegetable 



