222 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



tricks on insects. Among the introduced plants of the 

 island is one of the acalyphas. Butterflies which have 

 feasted among the umbrella-trees on the beach and 

 on the edge of the jungle flit about the garden and 

 almost invariably visit the red but nectarless acalypha. 

 One began at the end of the row, examined the top- 

 most leaves, flitted to the next, and so on, lured by 

 the colour and disappointed by the absence of nectar, 

 twenty-five times in succession, until it blundered on the 

 red hibiscus bushes and began to feed. 



The gorgeous blue swallow-tail {Papilio Ulysses) seems 

 to have a fancy for yellow, for it pays frequent visits to 

 the golden trumpets of the tecoma and the alamanda. 

 The living gold of the flowers and the imperial blue of 

 the insect form a sumptuous if everyday scene. 



Musical Frogs 



A marked feature of the wet season is the varied chant 

 of happy frogs. During the day silence is the rule. A low 

 gurgle of content at the sounding rain is occasionally heard 

 on the part of a flabby, moist creature unable to restrain its 

 sentiments until the approach of evening. But as the sun 

 sets, each of the countless host utters a song of thankfulness 

 and pleasure. To the unappreciative it may appear merely 

 an inharmonious vocal go-as-you-please, in which each frog 

 is the embodiment of the idea that upon its jubilant efforts 

 the honour and reputation of the race as vocalists depend. 

 But to one class of listener the opera is decently if not 

 scientifically constituted. There is the loud and cheerful, 

 if not shrill, bleating of the soprano, the strenuous boom- 

 ing of the bass, the velvety softness and depth of the 

 contralto and the thin high tenor. Hordes of the alert, 

 sharp-featured, far-leaping grass frog represent the chorus, 

 and they have a perfectly rehearsed theme. Down on the flat 

 along the edge of the pandanus grove the preliminary 

 chords are uttered — a merry, unreflective, chirrupy strain, gay 



