A rare baptism to stand beneath the tree for the cool sweet spray
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 generating food far
beyond the daily needs of all who choose to take.
By a very moderate computation--such an orderly plan of bloom lends
itself to simple statistics--the average production 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.
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