When The Sun
Declined They Would Vanish, To Be Seen No More Until We Had Another
Perfect Spring-Like Day.
On such days in July and on any mild misty morning, standing on the
mound within the moat I
Would listen to the sounds from the wide open
plain, and they were sounds of spring - the constant drumming and
rhythmic cries of the spur-wing lapwings engaged in their social
meetings and "dances," and the song of the pipit soaring high up and
pouring out its thick prolonged strains as it slowly floated downwards
to the earth.
In August the peach blossomed. The great old trees standing wide apart
on their grassy carpet, barely touching each other with the tips of
their widest branches, were like great mound-shaped clouds of
exquisite rosy-pink blossoms. There was then nothing in the universe
which could compare in loveliness to that spectacle. I was a
worshipper of trees at this season, and I remember my shocked and
indignant feeling when one day a flock of green paroquets came
screaming down and alighted on one of the trees near me. This paroquet
never bred in our plantation; they were occasional visitors from their
home in an old grove about nine miles away, and their visits were
always a great pleasure to us. On this occasion I was particularly
glad, because the birds had elected to settle on a tree close to where
I was standing. But the blossoms thickly covering every twig annoyed
the parrots, as they could not find space enough to grasp a twig
without grasping its flower as well; so what did the birds do in their
impatience but begin stripping the blossoms off the branches on which
they were perched with their sharp beaks, so rapidly that the flowers
came down in a pink shower, and in this way in half a minute every
bird made a twig bare where he could sit perched at ease.
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