Читать книгу Friends and Foes in the Australian Bush - Edward Sorenson - Страница 5

Table of Contents

The winter months had been comparatively dull. Now, with the warming spring days there was excitement in the community. Young and old appeared more sprightly, and became more restless and active. The playgrounds were cleaned up, and the accompanying bowers, damaged by rains and floods, repaired and decorated for the biggest social event of the year.

They assembled one September morning at the parental bower, and at once began a vigorous contest among the males for the favors of the opposite sex. Spotty had mingled with these from his very babyhood, but he had never noticed till now how very attractive they were. His neck-frill was raised with pride as one and another came to coquet with him.

He was a fine handsome fellow, between eleven inches and a foot in length, with a rich brown coat, mottled all over with dusky-red spots or bars, varied with spots of rich buff. The under surface was mottled grey, the primaries and tail were tipped with white. The latter was nearly five inches long. The strong thick bill, measuring an inch, was dusky-brown. The crown feathers were reddish-brown, tipped with silvery-grey. Across the nape was a beautiful band of longer bright lilac feathers, forming a fan-shaped neck crest of metallic lustre. He was not singular in the possession of this head-dress, for the Great Bower Bird, Eastern, and Guttated Bower Birds also had it, and all three much resembled him generally.

The females closely resembled him in feather colours, but they were almost entirely lacking the lilac neck plumes that gave him such a striking appearance as he strutted among them. In place of the friendship and sociability that had existed throughout the year, the bearing of the males towards each other was now stiff and hostile.

After a preliminary bowing and scraping the play or dance began. One picked up a piece from the collection and, with half-opened or trailing wings, tail spread, and head turned first to one side and then the other, like a lady trying to look at her train, danced into the pavilion, then tossed the piece backwards and ran out at the opposite end. Meanwhile the others were circling outside, some with ruffled feathers and dragging wings. When the plaything was tossed back, another picked it up and entered the hall to go through the same performance. This was presently varied by an old male throwing himself on his back and holding the object up in his claws. Another immediately snapped it from him and bolted, only to lose it in turn to a swift- footed pursuer. Some, between running and dancing, rolled on the ground, jumped up and down, sidestepped and performed other curious antics.

After a while all formed into a procession and ran through and around the bower, chasing each other with the utmost glee and enthusiasm. At the same time they mocked the cries of all other birds with whom they were familiar.

There was a trim little maiden there to whom Spotty had taken a fancy. Unfortunately, she was also admired by another young bachelor. The procession had no sooner ended than they came into collision. They flew savagely at each other. They struck with beak and claw, and tugged hard when either got a grip of his adversary. The others stood by, to watch the vigorous conflict. It did not last long, and Spotty came out victorious.

It was not his only battle, for disputes arose at other bowers. In the end he departed from the old run with the maid of his choice. He had already decided where they should live--a tussocky patch well screened by a bit of brush. He at once began preparations for the bower, for that important edifice had to be constructed before nesting began. It represented a prodigious amount of labor, which was shared by the willing and faithful bride.

First, a playground about six feet square was cleared. Then, in the centre of that, two parallel rows of clay and gravel were laid down, about six inches apart. Along each row tall shafts of silk grass, Mitchell grass and kangaroo grass in bloom were firmly planted, heads uppermost, and the tops bent till they overlapped. At the back of this lining, a dense wall of sticks, also stuck in the rubble, was built on each side, and immediately surrounded with a light ballast of well- trampled twigs.

This stupendous task accomplished, the inner walls were sparsely decorated with blue flowers and blue and yellow parrot-feathers. A few bones and pieces of blue and green glass, bits of emu shell, and green pine branchlets, formed the beginning of his museum. To bring it to the level of his parents' would require not the gleaning of a month, or a year, but of many years.

The bower was twenty-seven inches long, with an inside width of nine inches. The walls were each nine inches thick and eighteen inches high. When completed, the bone heaps or mats would add another nine inches to each end. These, composed mostly of the back bones of sheep, were put down in four even heaps, one at each side of the entrances and spread thinly over the outer passage. The total number at either end was ninety. Besides these, a mat of twenty-seven small bones, intermixed with quondong seed, was laid down in the centre of the avenue. As will be seen, a remarkable feature about it was the constant application of the number nine. There were variations in other bowers in the neighborhood, but (remembering that the collections were often in process of being added to) they were sufficiently near to show that the bird's favorite number was nine or a multiple of nine. In the choice of decorations he also showed a strong partiality for blue, white, silver, yellow, and green colors. Red he would have nothing to do with.

This bower was their future home, their place of resort at all times, but more particularly at that season when nature prompted them to reproduce their kind. There Spotty displayed himself before his admiring mate, and they had rare gambols together. If another bird appeared on the scene, he rushed at him with a savage gurr-r-r, and drove him off. His love was too strong yet to tolerate the presence of another male, while Mrs. Spotty was too jealous to allow another female to intrude. They were all in all to themselves these days.

At times he would chase her round the playground as if he meant to strip the feathers off her. He ended by picking up one of the materials in the bower, and uttering a soft note of invitation. When she did not respond, he raised his feathers and set off on another Marathon race round the bower. His eyes bulged with the excitement. This over, he stood with spread tail and expanded crest. He opened first one wing and then the other, and uttered now a soft quiss-s-s or a low gurr-r-r, and picked up as a hen does when calling her chicks, till at last the little mate went gently up to him. After a moment's billing and circling together he made a sudden rush, and they flew away into the trees.

The main interest now centred in the trees. Selecting a mistletoe bush, which hung in the branches of a myall tree, she built a frail, loose nest of twigs and sticks, thinly lined with grass and a few feathers. It measured nine inches by four-and-a-half inches over all, with an egg cavity of four-and-a-half inches by two-and-a-quarter inches. In the flimsiness and the simplicity of its construction, it was characteristic of nearly the whole group. It was a poor receptacle for the two wonderfully marked eggs that the little mother shortly produced. Long oval in shape, and measuring one-and-a-half inches by one inch, they were each marked with numerous hair-like lines of rich umber, like fine thread wound round and round the shell, crossing and recrossing, on a ground color of pale green. The inner surface of the shell was blotched with light grey, whilst both ends were comparatively free from markings. They were so singular in appearance, that a stranger would have thought they had been painted by hand. The eggs of the Regent, the Tewinya, or Fawn-breasted Bower Bird, and the Guttated species were similarly marked, but outside the group they were matchless in their curious tracery.

Incubation occupied a little more than a fortnight, and the twins were about three weeks old when they left the nest. When they could fly tolerably well, they were taken to the bower, which henceforth was the common daily resort.

Spotty had now lost his jealousy. Instead of shooing a casual caller off the premises, he made himself quite agreeable to him. So the old desire for company returned, with the resulting rounds of socials and pantomimes.

Every time he came to play he brought some decoration for his bower, and in the course of time it became quite a little curiosity shop. Flowers, leaves and green berries (placed in heaps like eggs in a nest) were removed as soon as they withered and replaced with fresh ones. He was often to be seen there at daybreak, arranging and rearranging his collection. A great source of annoyance to him was Sandy, the black- fellow, who made it his business to search the bowers for pipes, coins, pocket-knives, gold, opal, diamonds, brooches, pins, rings, and other valuables stolen from camps and houses, or picked up in the bush. In the process of searching, he scattered the bones, glassware and old china, as well as the hakea seed and quondong stones, all over the place--a liberty which Spotty hotly resented. When the disturber had gone, he ran about with ruffled feathers, scolding and growling, then busily set to work and put everything in place again. His numbers, however, were apt to get out of order on account of such interference.

White men occasionally chanced near his bower, and an odd one, out of kindness, would add something to the collection. But all such additions Spotty threw out with scorn, even though they were such as he would gladly pick up if he saw them lying about a camp. He did not vanish, like some of his cousins, at the sight of man, but from a safe branch would frequently utter his saucy scolding note when his haunts were intruded upon.

During a long period of peace, he acquired many choice articles that made his friends' eyes shine with admiration. But, though they might be envious, no respectable Bower Bird would steal from another. Among the assortment was a silver spoon which he had taken from a bench at the back of the selector's house; a thimble, stolen from a stretcher on the verandah of the same place, where the woman had temporarily put down her sewing, and a small pocket mirror that had belonged to a shepherd. This was his proudest possession, and was allotted a place to itself. A thousand times he had circled round it, trying to solve the mystery of the bird inside that did everything he did. Now and again he endeavored to look under it, and even turned it over. It was a great mystery, a most fascinating thing, and a wonderful treasure.

Still he accumulated things. In a jaunt along the scrub, his roving eye detected a glistening object lying on the bunk in a traveller's tent. The traveller was down at the river washing his clothes. By the time he had finished, Spotty was with his family at the bower, gloating over the possession of a silver watch and chain. When, after the morning's play, he returned to the tent, the traveller was still feeling his pockets, and looking through his things. Still searching up and down, he repeated for the hundredth time: "I'm positive I left it on the bunk." At last he settled down in the tent for a smoke. Almost immediately he heard the chock-clock of dray wheels overhead. This brought him out instantly. He looked all round, and even in the air, but all he saw was a brown bird perched in the tree overhanging the tent. He was unused to the bush, for he had only recently left the city in the hope of picking up a job at the shearing sheds.

He returned to the tent with a puzzled look.

Hardly had he sat down, when he heard the plaintive mee-ow of a cat on his roof. Out he darted again. Still there was nothing but the brown bird in the tree.

He went back, looking worried.

A minute or so later a lamb bleated two or three times overhead, followed by the barking of a dog. Surely this was no hallucination. Out again; a more careful survey of the surroundings; and still nothing but the brown bird in the tree.

He retired, nervous and desperate-looking.

Spotty, being of a prying, inquisitive nature, was interested in the doings of this person. He had also learnt by long experience that such places were worth watching. It was also too hot to be roaming about. So he remained perched in the shade, and to pass the time he presently gave a realistic imitation of a cock-crow. Chummy started and turned pale.

He held his seat and breathlessly listened. The crow was not repeated, but in a little while he heard a baby crying, followed by what appeared to be a woman saying "sh, sh, shh!" He was outside in two leaps, but his wild, wandering look found nothing but the brown bird in the tree.

That finished him. "This place is haunted," he said.

And out he got at once.

For ten years Spotty led a busy, active life, and no doubt he made a lot of fun out of it. Then, one day, a smothering dust-storm caught him in the open in his old age, and, though he tried bravely to fight his way home, it was too late, and the hot, suffocating, darkening dust clouds swallowed him up. When old Sandy next went along the Warrego, seeking valuables in the treasure houses of the little thieves, the bower was deserted.