low flight to the beach.

At dawn a bat flew into a spider's web spun during the night, the
extremities of the wings being so entangled that struggling was almost
impossible. A big spider pounced on it. Not a minute elapsed from the
entanglement until the bat was released, but the venom of the spider had
done its work. There was not a sign of life. The spider is dark grey in
colour, bloated of body, slothful, and of most retiring disposition.
Huddled up into almost spherical form, it lurks in dark places, which it
soon makes insanitary. In the open it crouches among dead leaves which
have gathered in the fork of a tree, and will construct a web which spans
the coconut avenue with its stays. From one aspect its rotund body
invites a good-humoured smile, for the marking exactly simulates the
features of a tabby cat, well fed, sleepy, and in placid mood. Venom of
virulence to kill a bat almost instantly would be severe enough to a
human being. This dirty, obese spider deserves little consideration at
the hand of man.

A moonless, cloudless night. The little praam takes the ground in the bay
a few yards from the beach, and in the midst of a constellation of
"jelly-fishes" spherical in form and varying in size. The larger are so
many pale blue orbs floating lazily in a luminous mist, the only visible
manifestation of life being a delicate but rhythmical deepening of the
central hue. The wash of my wading seems not to affect them. I become
conscious of the sudden appearance and swift disappearance of lesser
spheres of startling brilliance. They emerge from nothingness, pause for
a moment, and shoot towards me with extraordinary impulse. Each is a
mere globule, resplendently blue. The tint intensifies as with
accelerated velocity the atom flies until of its own excessive energy it
explodes with a shell-like flash, leaving a sinuous trail of golden light.