When the melaleuca blossoms, bees seem to work with quite feverish haste; but the honey gained is dark in colour and has a certain pungent, almost acid, flavour.  Holding a frame of comb to the light, you see the clear gold of the bloodwood and the tawny tints of the melaleuca as erratically defined as geographical distinctions in a tinted map.  Bees keep it apart to indulge in it, peradventure, at revolutionary epochs.  Italian bees are docile, at least less pugnacious than other species.  Does not the dark spirituous honey inspire them with that degree of courage which we English call Dutch?

CHAPTER VII

“THE LORD AND MASTER OF FLIES”

Among the curious creatures native to the island is a fierce cannibalistic fly.  Fully an inch in length and bulky in proportion, it somewhat resembles a house-fly on a gigantic scale, but is lustrous grey in colour, with blond eyes, fawn legs, and transparent, iridescent wings, with a brassy glint in them.  The broad, comparatively short wings carry a body possessing a muscular system of the highest development, for the note flight produces indicates the extraordinary rapidity of the wing vibrations.  Some swift-flying insects are said to make about eight hundred down strokes of the wing per second.  This big fair fellow’s machinery may not be equipped for such marvellous momentum, but the high key that he sounds under certain circumstances indicates rare force and speed.  No library of reference is available.  The specific scientific title of the insect cannot therefore be supplied.  Possibly it does not yet possess one, but it is a true fly of the family ASILIDAE, and being a veritable monster to merely sportful and persistent if annoying flies of lesser growth, no doubt it will continue to perform its part even though without a formal distinction.  Its presence is announced by an ominous, booming hum.  It passes on one side with a flight so rapid as to render it almost invisible.  You hear a boom which has something of a whistle, and see a yellowish glint; the rest is space and silence.  In half a minute the creature returns; and thus he scoops about, booming and making innocent lightnings in the clear air.  The tone is demonstrative, aggressive, triumphant; but the monster is only reconnoitring—­seeing whether you have any flies about you.  You may have boasted to yourself—­there being no friends about to tolerate your egotistical confidences that there are no flies about you; but the big, booming creature has his suspicions.  Apparently in his opinion you are just the sort of country to attract and encourage flies, and he does not immediately satisfy himself to the contrary.  But should you witlessly happen to have attracted the companionship of ever so innocent a fly, the awful presence seizes it on the wing and is away with the twang of a bullet.  It will pick a fly from your sunburnt arm—­no occasion for coats here—­with neatness and despatch