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Updated: May 16, 2025
Of course it was here before the honey-bee, and has been evolved quite independently of it. It feeds upon the pollen and nectar of flowers like the true bee, and is, therefore, of similar form and color. The honey-bee has its enemies; the toads and tree-frogs feed upon it, and the kingbird captures the slow drone.
When, therefore, the probable father of Why-Why became weary of supporting his family, he did not need to leave the cave and tramp abroad. He merely ceased to bring in tree-frogs, grubs, roots, and the other supplies which Why-Why's mother was accustomed to find concealed under a large stone in the neighbourhood of the cave.
I was grateful for the rarity of outdoor sounds; a few tree-frogs piped, two or three solitary wayfarers passed in the street; twice or more the sergeant of the night-watch trilled his whistle in a street or two behind us, and twice or more in front; and once, and once again, came the distant bellow of steamboats passing each other not the famous boats whose whistle you would know one from another, for they were laid up.
And then at night, the melancholy wailing of the curlews, the dismal howling of dingoes, the discordant croaking of tree-frogs, might well shake the nerves of the solitary watcher." That is the theater for the drama. When you comprehend one or two other details, you will perceive how well suited for trouble it was, and how loudly it invited it.
I at length returned with my game to the large branch where I had left Uncle Paul and Marian. Arthur and Tim came back about the same time; the one with some eggs, and the latter with a couple of tree-frogs of huge size.
I thought of vineyards and orchards, of skies intensely blue, of scorching sunshine, of the tumultuous chirping of cicadas and grasshoppers, and then of the tepid nights crowded with glittering stars and hushed except for the piping of tree-frogs. Before the war before the war I repeated the words to myself. They conveyed a sense of immeasurable remoteness, of something gone and lost for ever.
Hearts and choirs of primroses in the moist, shadowy mosses of the woods; long threads of rose and blue dew floating and swinging and suspended from what? in the immaterial morning; tree-frogs with golden eye-lids and white throbbing throats; furze whose perfume of faded peach and rose follows along the roads, already torrid....
Comparatively small as are these wonderful performers, their voices made a considerable item in the evening concert. Before they had ceased, the tree-frogs chimed in with their "Quack, quack! drum, drum! hoo, hoo!" accompanied by melancholy nightjars, which for long kept up their monotonous cries.
One would see the tree-frogs in the cavities of old trees, wrapped in their winter sleep which is yet not a sleep, but suspended animation. When the day is warm, or the January thaw comes, I fancy the little frog feels it and stirs in his bed. One would see the warty toads squatted in the soil two or three feet below the surface, in the same way.
The sweet wind danced on airy feet in and out of the cypresses and the gums, kissed them, stole their breath, and tossed it abroad odorously. Stars had come out to keep the pale moon company, and a faint light glinted on wet grass and bushes. Crickets and katydids and little green tree-frogs kept up a harsh concert.
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