THE RIVER JUNGLE 



like the buzzing of bees, some of them strange and 

 unusual to us. One cicada had a sustained note, in 

 quality about like that of our own August-day's 

 friend, but in quantity and duration as the roar of a 

 train to the gentle hum of a good motor car. Like all 

 cicada noises it did not usurp the sound world, but 

 constituted itself an underlying basis, so to speak. 

 And when it stopped the silence seemed to rush in as 

 into a vacuum! 



We had likewise the aeroplane beetle. He was so 

 big that he would have made good wing-shooting. 

 His manner of flight was the straight-ahead, heap- 

 of-buzz, plenty-busy, don't-stop-a-minute-or-you'll- 

 com.e-down method of the aeroplane; and he made 

 the same sort of a hum. His first-cousin, mechan- 

 ically, was what we called the wind-up-the-watch 

 insect. This specimen possessed a watch — an 

 old-fashioned Waterbury, evidently — that he was 

 continually winding. It must have been hard work 

 for the poor chap, for it sounded like a very big 

 watch. 



All these things were amusing. So were the birds. 

 The African bird is quite inclined to be didactic. 

 He believes you need advice, and he means to give it. 

 To this end he repeats the same thing over and over 

 until he thinks you surely cannot misunderstand. 

 One chap especially whom we called the lawyer bird, 



9Q 



