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
booming 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 as "the Fishermen's Chorus." The motive is taken up nearer among the
coco-nuts, and is in full swing in the pools below the terrace. Thence
the sound passes on through the wattles and bloodwoods to the narrow
tea-tree swamp lined with dwarf bamboos and dies in echoes in the
distance.
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