SEQUELS 287 



some way an imponderable amount of oil or dis- 

 solved wax is extruded and mixed with the drop, 

 an invisible shellac which toughens the bubble 

 and gives it an astounding glutinous endurance. 

 As long as the abdominal air-pump can be ex- 

 tended into the atmosphere, so long does the pile 

 of bubbles grow until the insect is deep buried, 

 and to penetrate this is as unpleasant an achieve- 

 ment for small marauders as to force a cobweb 

 entanglement. I have draped a big pile of bub- 

 bles around the beak of an insect-eating bird, and 

 watched it shake its head and wipe its beak in 

 evident disgust at the clinging oily films. In the 

 north we have the bits of fine white foam which 

 we characteristically call frog-spittle, but these 

 tropic relatives have bigger bellows and their 

 covering is like the interfering mass of films 

 which emerges from the soap-bubble bowl when 

 a pipe is thrust beneath the surface and that de- 

 licious gurgling sound produced. 



The most marvelous part of the whole thing 

 is that the undistilled well which the Bubble Bug 

 taps would often overwhelm it in an instant, 

 either by the burning acidity of its composition, 

 or the rubber coating of death into which it 

 hardens in the air. Yet with this current of lava 



