Читать книгу Friends and Foes in the Australian Bush - Edward Sorenson - Страница 8

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A squeak in the distance told him of the presence of other possums. He stopped once, with a sharp stab of fear, as a squirrel darted over him with a sudden squeal, and his heart fluttered painfully when a dingo howled quite close to him.

Just as he reached his fellows, many of whom were gambolling on the ground, they made a wild scamper for the trees. Pausing a moment, he noticed that none of them rushed straight up on reaching a tree, but darted partly round it first. Instinct told him that danger was hot- foot in pursuit, and in terror he fled likewise. They were high up among the branches in a few seconds, but Quiyan was very young yet, and his gymnastic exercises had been neglected. Desperately and laboriously he climbed a few feet, then he almost dropped off with shock as a brute like a dingo leaped at him from the grass. Trembling with fright, he struggled to a limb and crouched down beside an old buck, who was purring defiantly at the enemy.

"What is that?" he asked.

"A fox," said the veteran.

"When I was young like you there were none of them about, but now they are plentiful, and they are worse than the wild dog. They lie in ambush, and when you go down they spring out and catch you. You'll have to keep your eyes open, young one. Where is your mother?"

"She was caught in a snare a long way from here."

"The old sad tale!" said the veteran. "Where do you sleep now?"

"I haven't found a place yet," said Quiyan. "I must look for one to- night."

"Better be smart, young one," said the veteran.

"If the man foe sees you in the day, he will shoot you with his gun. The most terrible of all our enemies is the man foe."

Quiyan shuddered, and his pretty eyes filled with tears.

The fox went away at last, and then Quiyan descended and began his search for a suitable hollow. Dozens of trees he climbed, pausing now and again to refresh himself on various leaves, and on choice bits of herbage and sweet roots between trees, but what hollow knobs and spouts he found were already occupied. The occupiers were seldom at home, but they were never far away. He entered one, which appeared from the cobwebs in the corners and the dust on the floor, to be deserted. He was, however, almost immediately ejected, and knocked head over heels off the balcony. This made him wary, and, though considerably shaken and discouraged, he continued his search.

The dawn still found him searching. He was then on a treeless flat. He stepped gingerly and miserably through the wet grass, and in terror of his life. What chance would he have if the fox appeared now? There were other foes which he had not yet encountered, but which he came to know later. There was the carpet snake, which every possum dreaded, for he could not always hear it in the grass, and it often threw its deadly coils around him before he was aware of its presence. Though the dingo could find him anywhere by following his scent, he gave warning of his approach, and the possum could escape. However, he was not always so fortunate, he was a poor traveller on the ground, though he could spring around and side step with marvellous agility. If no friendly tree was handy, he fell an easy prey to the dingo and the tiger cat. In the air were the Eagle and the great Brown Hawk, which might swoop suddenly upon him and carry him off in their powerful talons.

He made all haste to the first clump of trees, which was on the bank of the river, and, choosing a bushy sugar gum, clambered wearily up on to a limb. When the sun peeped through his arbor, he was trying to sleep under difficulties, and soon his eyes were tear-wet and sore with the fierce light The Noisy Miner and the Tallarook (Wattle Bird) discovered him, and these made such a noise that other tormentors were attracted. They seemed to recognise his plight, and therefore persecuted him for hours. The worst were the Kingfisher and the Magpie. He grew tired with dodging and ducking as they darted at him, and sometimes he put up his hands to ward off an attack. The vicious snap of the Magpie's beaks, which missed his ear by only a hair's breadth, so alarmed him, that two or three times he almost fell off his lodging.

"This will never do," he thought, looking dejectedly around; "I must get a house to-night if I have to fight for it."

He went higher up the trunk, where he sought the shelter of clustering leaves. Above the first branches there were several knobs like huge warts, and in one of these, to his great joy, he found a cosy hollow. There was no danger of being knocked up here in the middle of the day, for all possums had long before this returned from their meetings and banquets. This hollow had no owner. It was his, and in it he curled up and slept.

For a few months he occupied that comfortable hollow, content to live alone, though he mingled awhile with other possums at night. But there came a change as he grew to maturity, a strange restlessness that drove him to seek companionship, and not the companionship of his own sex. With these he fought fierce battles, till his ears were scarred with tooth and claw. In most cases the cause of the battle was a coveted doe. The time was April, the month when possums mate. On a leaning ironbark, he had met one who welcomed his advances, but his love-making was soon interrupted by a rival. There was a short, sharp tussle on the bent trunk, which ended in a sousing fall for both. Limp and sore, they sat awhile on the couch grass, where they sparred and snarled. Then the rival decamped, and Quiyan returned quickly to his waiting partner.

For a long time after that he was absent from his home, for he slept with his mate by day in another hollow. When he returned he found that Kooragai, the Ringtail Possum, had jumped his claim, and he had to look again for another domicile.

Besides Kooragai, he had several other relatives, most of whom he never saw. Among them, the Black Possum, who belonged to Tasmania; the Striped Phalanger, of Northern Australia, an exceedingly pretty little creature, having parallel black, or dark brown, and white bars running the length of his body; the Mulbenger, of Western Australia, who had a long snout and a serrated tongue, with which he extracted the nectar from the honey-cups of the eucalypti; the Tula, a Queensland ringtail, who, like the Koala, the native bear, was often abroad in daytime; and Koorooi, the Sombre Ringtailed Possum.

Quiyan very rarely fed in the same tree in which he slept. On emerging at dusk, he noted carefully what was going on below, then tidied himself for "going out." He washed his face and combed his fur, licking his paws, and using them in the same way as the domestic cat.

His first act on going downstairs was generally to drink. He then spent some time on the ground, fossicking about for yams and fruits before joining his fellows for a frolic. Often a score or more gathered in one tree, and remained there for hours. With the approach of dawn they scattered for their holes.

In the hot summer months, Quiyan lost his sleekness and good looks. He was poorer and his fur was thin and falling out. He slept more now. Only a yearning for a ripe banana, or a feast of green lucerne, could take him far from home. Once he came across a tent, which had been pitched by some timber-getters under a low ridge. Here he discovered flour, sugar, raisins, and a tucker box in which was much that suited his palate. He chewed holes in all the bags, and sampled their contents. When he repeated the visit, the timber-getter was waiting for him, and he chased him hotly from tree to tree. The man uttered terrific yells, and lashed at him with a long bullock whip. Three different trees he made desperate attempts to ascend, only to be whipped off when he had got several yards up. When he at last escaped the terrible whip, and, perched panting in a silky oak, the timber- getter hurled blazing fire sticks at him. Twice he was knocked swinging off his perch, but was saved each time by his long clinging tail. He was so terrified and had so many sores and aches, that he never went near that tent again.

When the cold months returned, he had put on a new coat, which was firm and thick. With his gay appearance came gaiety of spirits.

This season he had a new mate, for his first had been captured by a black man. Her furry coat, which he had so often admired, was now carried by the wandering lubra.

He had most reason to dread the blacks by day, for it mattered not how high the possum was, or how well selected the hollow that formed his nest, they knew by the number and age of the claw marks on the soft bark that he lived there. They climbed up with tomahawk and vine and cut a hole in the wall of his bedroom, through which he was roughly hauled out by the tail, then battered against the tree trunk, and dropped to the ground--dead. The flesh was their favorite meat, and the furry skin their best material for making rugs to cover them in cold weather.

Ever as the seasons came and went, the settlements grew thicker and the forest thinner, till at last his own tree was sent crashing through the brush on the river bank. When he scrambled out of the debris, dazed and bruised, he had a wild race for life from the axeman's dogs. Being hot pressed on the brink, he sprang into the river and swam hard for the opposite bank. He swam fairly well, though he had never been in water before. The dogs beat about and barked for a moment or two before they followed him, and thus he landed with just time enough to spare to get up a convenient lillipilli. They squatted under the tree, where they barked at him for half-an-hour. However, as the men had no boat, he was let off.

That night he trekked still further afield, and found a new home in a strange forest. Here there were hundreds of his family, who frolicked on the boxwood flats between a high ridge and a broad lagoon. He was a happy, contented possum thereafter, playing and feasting the night long, though he had many adventures and some narrow escapes. At first two other possums had their abode in the same tree as himself, though in a different spout. The man with a gun, who walked abroad on moonlight nights, shot them both. He remembered every detail of the shooting: the man mooning round the tree until he had got the foolish possum in the full face of the moon, the flash and roar of the gun, the thud of the victim, as it reached the ground, and its agonised cries as the dogs pounced upon and worried it.

Descending warily that same night, he found a mother Koala sitting at the butt of the tree, with a baby on her back.

"I wonder you didn't fall," said the Koala. "Do you always come down headfirst?"

"Of course," said Quiyan. "Don't you?"

"No; I descend backwards. It's easier."

"Do you go up backwards?" asked Quiyan.

The mother Koala gave a loud snort, which woke the baby and made Quiyan jump.

"What an idea!" she exclaimed, chuckling in a koalaish way. A stertorous cry down the flat interrupted her.

"That must be the old man," she said, listening. "I haven't seen him since the afternoon."

"Do you go about in the day?" asked Quiyan. "He does. He's out at all hours. I must go and see what he's doing." Saying which, she dropped on all fours and went off slowly down the flat. Quiyan darted away in another direction, where he knew there were some young lady possums, who would console him for the loss of his friends.

One day a piercing shriek, which startled the birds on land and water, rang through the forest.

Quiyan, rudely awakened by a scratching at his door, had looked up to see Kojurrie, the goanna, stealing into his bedroom. Lacking the shrewdness and cunning of the platypus, he had only one opening to his domicile, and thus, when the black robber thrust his head in, his exit was cut off.

With his back to the wall, he hissed and sparred at the approaching foe. His eyes were aglare with horror. The goanna rushed through his guard, and, seizing him behind the shoulder, dragged him out, despite his shrieks and struggles. A frantic plunge lifted Kojurrie off the limb, and both fell heavily. The struggle was continued on the ground, while Magpie Larks and Gillbirds, attracted by the commotion among the dead leaves and twigs, chattered excitedly on adjacent limbs.

Poor Quiyan fought pluckily, but his claws and teeth made little impression on the hard scaly body of his foe. In a few minutes he lay limp and still, a fat meal for the gluttonous victor.