It was a positive pleasure for him to watch the little jumping spiders, which were of such brilliant hue that they looked like animated gems as they sprang from bough to bough. The web-spinning species were not only very numerous, but caused the greatest annoyance. They stretched their webs from one tree to another at such a height as to come in contact with a man’s chin, and the threads were so strong and glutinous as to require no slight amount of trouble to free one’s self from them. These fellows were fully two inches long, with yellow spots on their brown bodies, which gave them a very disagreeable appearance.
The apes paid little or no attention to these pests; but Philip could never conquer his aversion to the fat-bellied insects, and more than once did he make a long detour rather than run the risk of an encounter.
As for the lizards, it seemed as if every bush was alive with them. They were of all shades—green, gray, brown and black; and even Goliah, who delighted in cruelty, never so much as harmed one of these active little hunters, all of whom were busily engaged catching the flies and mosquitoes, for without such a check to the increase of insect-life the island would speedily have become uninhabitable.
The work was carried steadily forward, however, despite all annoyances, and in three weeks from the time Philip Garland became king of the apes it was possible to sit in the rebuilt tower of the principal dwelling and view the sea from four different points. Therefore, in case a vessel approached the island the king would have such timely notice of her coming that any signal might be made. It would simply be necessary to start a small fire on the beach to have it built to the height of a mountain by the industrious apes.
Only in the hope of relief coming from the sea did Philip succeed in nerving himself to play the part of a brute. If he could have had a companion with whom to converse, his position would have lost many horrors; but to be surrounded by apes was worse than being alone, and, next to the arrival of human beings, perfect solitude was the greatest boon which could have been granted him.
During the labor of road-making Philip noticed that now and then a party of apes would leave the working portion of the army and absent themselves two or three hours, bringing at the end of that time what appeared, both from shape and size, to be hens’ eggs. These were evidently considered a great delicacy by the apes, and the searchers invariably handed one to the king and each of his officers before partaking themselves.
To make any attempt at cooking them would have given the apes the idea of building innumerable small fires, which might soon have consumed all the vegetation on the island, and Philip ate his raw, as did the others. He fancied that some of the colonists’ poultry might have escaped destruction, and so eager was he to learn where this article of food could be found that on seeing a certain number of apes abandon their labors, under Goliah’s direction, he followed. The party went directly to the sea-shore, and there, just above high-water mark, where a turtle would naturally make her nest, were found little piles of sand, in each of which was a single egg.
It was some time before Philip learned that these tiny hills were the nests of a bird known to naturalists as the “Maleo.”
A few days later he saw a glossy black and white bird with helmeted head and elevated tail—not unlike a common fowl, except that the bonnet and the tubercles at the nostrils were longer—scraping the sand into little mounds, and he knew the rare species was before him.
Some months subsequent to this Philip learned that after the maleo thus deposits her eggs she follows the example of the turtle, and pays no further attention to her nest. The sun does the work of maternity, and the young chicks are able to take care of themselves on emerging from the shell.