The other most conspicuous trees in the garden are the magnificent Madagascar Poinciana regia, tamarind, the Brazilian jacaranda, and several sorts of Australian spruce, especially a beautiful specimen of bunya-bunya (Araucaria bidwillii). This grand tree grows only in a limited territory from Darling Downs north to Burnett river, and is protected by the Government for the sake of the aborigines, who collect the huge cones and use the seeds for food.
Cocoa-nut and date-palms delight the eye, but do not bear good fruit, although the reason is not apparent.
Near the lake the celebrated Egyptian papyrus has been planted in large quantities, and forms a perfect grove. A little singer, the Acrocephalus australis, has made his home in this papyrus grove, where several pairs are nesting. It sings in the evening and in the night, and is considered to be Australia’s best song-bird. The lake, or lagoon as it is called here, is a little more than a mile long and half a mile wide, and is the resort of a great number of water-fowls. In the winter more than 400 pelicans are seen here, but in the middle of the summer most of them depart.
The pelicans do the most of their fishing in the night, and together. The noise they make with the splashing of their wings while thus occupied sounds something like that of a paddle-wheel steamer in motion. Occasionally I could see them rise, apparently without moving their wings, in a spiral direction, higher and higher, until they disappeared from sight. It seemed as if they did it only for amusement or for the purpose of enjoying the sunshine. When they return, they come down so swiftly that a sough is heard in the air.
A few black swans (Cygnus atratus) are seen now and then. In November I frequently heard them sing on the water in the evening. Ducks and geese abound, and so do gray and blue cranes, cormorants, and snake-birds (Plotus). Not many years ago Mr. A. Archer counted thirty-seven kinds of birds on the lagoon. And still the birds are few now, both as to numbers and species, as compared with what they were twenty years ago. The cattle have eaten the tall grass and the weeds growing in the shallow water near the shores of the lake, where thousands of birds found their homes. Even black swans made their nests here. Mr. Archer believes that a few years ago there were more than 10,000 birds on this lake. If a gun was fired, the birds rose with a noise like distant thunder.
The most striking bird on the lagoon is doubtless the beautiful Parra gallinacea, which in Australia is called the lotus-bird. It sits on leaves that float on the water, particularly those of the water-lily. Blue water-lilies are found in great numbers along the edge of the lagoon, and hence the lotus-bird is very common here. It is somewhat larger than a thrush, and has very long legs, and particularly highly developed toes, which enable it to walk about on the floating leaves. Its food consists chiefly of snails and insects, which it usually finds by turning the lily leaf. Its simple nest is also built on the leaves.
The eggs, which are a beautiful brown with lines and spots, are considered very rare, and are remarkable both on account of their form and colour. They look, says Gould, as though they were drawn by a man who had amused himself by covering the surface with fantastic lines. The young look very funny on account of their long legs and big toes as compared with their small bodies.
The grown bird is not shy, but the young are extremely timid. I had once or twice seen the old birds with young, but as soon as I approached them, the young always disappeared, while the old birds walked about fearlessly, as if there was no danger. It long remained a mystery to me, how they could conceal themselves so well and so long, but one day the problem was solved. An old bird came walking with two young ones near shore. I hid behind a tree and let them come close to me. As I suddenly made my appearance, the small ones dived under the water and held themselves fast to the bottom, while I watched them for a quarter of an hour, before taking them up.
There are large quantities of fish in the lagoon, several varieties of perch, eel, and a kind of pike with a very long snout (the gar-fish). But the fresh-water mullet (Mugil) is particularly abundant: it has a remarkable power of leaping out of the water, and in so doing it frequently comes unawares up into the boat and is caught. When the lagoon, on account of long-continued drought, is very low, you can always be sure while bathing of coming in contact with some kind of fish, which sometimes flies over your head.
Gracemere was originally a sheep station, but latterly the sheep have entirely given place to cattle on the whole coast. This change is partly due to the climate, which is too moist, and partly to a nocuous kind of grass, namely the dreaded spear-grass (Andropogon contortus), which grows on the coast, and which rendered sheep-raising impossible. It stuck fast in the wool of the sheep, or worked itself into their very bodies and killed them. For this reason Gracemere is now exclusively a cattle station. The sheep were about 350 miles farther west.