LAUGHING JACKASS (Dacelo gigas).
This does not however hinder us from finding beautiful woody scenes along the streams, often indeed so charming that we fancy ourselves transported to an ideal landscape. It is not necessary to be a special lover of nature in order to be captivated by the picturesque arches of the trees over the winding stream, where the silence is broken only by the shrill cry of the cockatoo or the tittering ha! ha! ha! ha! of the laughing jackass. Suddenly, as we walk through the vine-scrub, a lizard will throw itself down into the water with a great splash to disturb a poor water-hen that has become absorbed in its own meditations on the strand.
VINE-SCRUB NEAR GRACEMERE.
Few of the birds of Australia have pleased me as much as this curious laughing jackass, though it is both clumsy and unattractive in colour. Far from deserving its name jackass, it is on the contrary very wise and also very courageous. It boldly attacks venomous snakes and large lizards, and is consequently the friend of the colonist.
The animal life in these woods was of the greatest interest to me, and every day I added to my collection during the excursions I made in the vicinity of Gracemere. In the scrub I shot a Pitta strepitans, which is very rare in these parts, but common in Northern Queensland.
As the region around Rockhampton is comparatively civilised, I could not look for any large number of mammals, for they are the first to yield to civilisation. Those that live in trees were still frequently to be found. The common opossum abounded, and the hollow trunks of the gum-trees generally served as abodes of the bandicoot, of the native cat (Dasyurus), and of the kangaroo-rat.
It is very interesting to observe how a kind of “white ant” make their nests. They build them high up in trees, constructing tunnels along the stem of the tree to the ground. If the tree leans, they always build the tunnels on the under side, to avoid the opossum, which climbs on the upper side.
My collections consisted chiefly of birds, fishes, and lower animals, especially Coleoptera. I was fortunate enough to discover a new fresh-water cod, the fish called black-fish by the colonists. It is so little shy that it would even bite my leg when I bathed. I at one time had an opportunity of observing that it can live for nine hours out of water.
One of the largest land-snails of Australia, the Helix cunninghamii, is found on the hills near the station.