2o6 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



to fall upon the upturned face, a baptism as pure as it is 

 unceremonious. 



Red-collared lorikeets revel in the nectar, hustling the 

 noisy honey-eaters and the querulous sun-birds. The radiant 

 blue butterfly sips and is gone, or if it be his intent to pause, 

 tightly folds his wings on the instant of settling, and is 

 transformed from a piece of living jewellery to a brown 

 mottled leaf caught edgeways among the red flowers. The 

 green and gold butterflies are for ever fluttering and 

 quivering. The complaining lorikeets peevishly nudge 

 them off with red, nectar-dripping bills, the honey-eaters 

 disperse them with inconsiderate wing sweeps ; but the 

 butterflies are not to be denied their share. After a 

 moment's airy flight they return to the feast, quivering with 

 eagerness. And so the weeks pass, the patient tree generat- 

 ing food far beyond the daily needs of all who chose to 

 take. 



By a very moderate computation — such an orderly plan 

 of bloom lends itself to simple statistics — the average pro- 

 duction of a fairly crowned tree is over a gallon of nectar 

 per day. Hundreds of trees so crowned brighten all parts 

 of the island with their red rays. And where the nectar 

 is, there will the sun-birds be gathered together — a sweeter 

 notion, truly, than carcases and eagles. 



And this nectar, clear as dew-drops, sweet with an after- 

 taste of some scented spice — a fragile pungency — was ever 

 liqueur so purely compounded? Drawn from untainted 

 soil ; filtered and purified ; passed from one delicate process 

 to another, warmed during the day, cooled by night airs, 

 chastened by breezes which have all the virtue of whole 

 Pacific breadths ; sublimated by the sun — all to what end, 

 to be proffered to birds and butterflies in ruddy goblets full 

 to the brim. 



The Genuine Upas-tree 



Powerful as nutmeg pigeons are on the wing, some 

 suffer lingering deaths in consequence of a singular 



