tree-beetle

Updated: May 9, 2025

When the sun dropped, the frogs began, from the cracks in the moist clay soil where they sat, all over our acre and a half, croaking in a wet, guttural chorus the whole garden called; and the rattle of the tree-beetle which followed was one of those tropical sounds which recall the East. The frogs were tiny brown fellows, hard to get at.

Isabel Savory - In the Tail of the Peacock

It is enough in such a spot to drowse away the sunny hours amidst the hum of bees, the rattle of the tree-beetle; to muse upon some book of whose drift only a faint idea is intelligible, content to leave its problems in the limbo of the insoluble, where most of life's questions seethe harmlessly enough; then, turning, give thanks to Allah, who has made gardens for mankind, and doze again.

Isabel Savory - In the Tail of the Peacock