hiss has been the only sound of the episode. It is a warning to be gone
and leave Nature to her secrets and silences.

A month's abstinence may not be a very severe penance for an island
on which the rainfall averages 124 inches per year; but when vegetation
suffers from the cruelty of four almost rainless months, promises and
slights amount to something more than mere discourtesy. How genuine the
thanksgiving to the soft skies after an incense-stimulating shower.
Insects whirl in the sunshine. Among the pomelo-trees is a cyclone of
scarcely visible things. Motes and specks of light dance in disorderly
figures, to be detected as animated objects only by gauzy wings catching
the light and reflecting it. Each insect, wakened but an hour ago by the
warmth of the moist soil, in an abandonment of the moment, is a
helioscope transmitting signals of pure pleasure. Drops still linger on
myriads of leaves, and glitter on the glorious gold of the Chinese
laburnum; the air is saturated with rich scents, and the frolicking
crowd, invisible but for the oblique light, does not dream of disaster.
Their crowded hour has attracted other eyes, appreciative in another
sense. Masked wood-swallows, swiftlets, spangled drongos, leaden
fly-eaters, barred-shouldered fly-eaters, hurry to the circus to desolate
it with hungry swoops. The assemblage is noisy, for two or three drongos
cannot meet without making a clatter on the subject of the moment. They
cannot sing, but clink and jangle with as much intensity and individual
satisfaction as if gifted with peerless note. It is the height of the
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 tunefulness, 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