My excursions extended not only to the immediate vicinity of Gracemere, but I made journeys of investigation to regions 200 miles away. Near Westwood, a little town about thirty miles from Rockhampton, I found for the first time the so-called bower-birds (Chlamydodera maculata), a family that has become celebrated on account of the bowers which they build for their amusement.
These bowers, which must not be confounded with nests, are used, as is well known, exclusively for amusement. They are always found in small brushwood, never in the open field, and in their immediate vicinity the bird collects a mass of different kinds of objects, especially snail-shells, which are laid in two heaps, one at each entrance, the one being much larger than the other. There are frequently hundreds of shells, about three hundred in one heap and fifty in the other. There is also usually a handful of green berries partly inside and partly outside of the bower; but like the empty shells and the other things collected, they are simply for amusement. Besides, these birds doubtless have the sense of beauty, as is indicated by the variegated and glittering objects gathered. This bower-bird has another remarkable quality, in its wonderful power of imitating sounds. When it visits the farms, where it commits great depredations in the gardens, it soon learns to mew like a cat or to crow like a cock.
In the woods here I shot a young cuckoo (Eudynamis flindersii), which was fed by four wood-swallows (Artamus sordidus). One of the swallows fell to the same shot. The three survivors swooped down toward the young cuckoo several times, but they took no notice whatever of their dead companion. I tried to approach the place, but the bold birds kept flying against me, as if to prevent me from proceeding, or to exhibit their wrath at what had happened. I shot one more, and waited to see what would happen. Both disappeared, but in the course of half an hour they returned accompanied by two others.
On a farm outside the village I saw a large nocuous insect, a moth which sucked the juice out of the oranges in the garden. Every evening a war of extermination had to be made against these animals, which are all the same very beautiful. Farmers have many other foes in tropical Australia. The large fruit-eating bat (Pteropus) does great damage to the orchards, and it is no pleasant sight for the industrious farmer to see the devouring swarms of these so-called flying-foxes advancing on his crops of an evening. Were it not for these enemies, fruit-growing in Queensland would be still more profitable than it is. An orange is no cheaper in Australia than in Norway, and all kinds of fruit are paid for in proportion.
TRUE AUSTRALIAN SCENERY.
Nor is the European bee, introduced by the colonists, permitted to live in peace in its new home. A kind of moth attacks the larvæ and destroys them.
From Westwood I proceeded to Peak Downs. Outside the village the landscape was enlivened by the rare sight of flowers on the ground, the red blossoms of the Pimelea hæmatostachya affording an agreeable change to the eye.
At Peak Downs, situated about 200 miles west of Rockhampton, I received the first impression of genuine native Australian scenery. Large plains, with here and there an isolated gum-tree; extensive scrubs, and now and then low mountain-ridges in the background; sometimes an emu would appear, or a little flock of kangaroos that are suddenly startled—all of which is so characteristic of the country.
I was surprised at the great number of marsupials that had their abode there. They had proved to be so troublesome that several of the squatters had found it necessary to surround their large pastures with fences so high that the animals could not jump over them and consume the grass. One of the sheep-owners told me that in the course of eighteen months he had killed 64,000 of these animals, especially wallabies (Macropus dorsalis) and kangaroo-rats (Lagorchestes conspicillatus), and also many thousands of the larger kangaroo (Macropus giganteus). The bodies of these animals are left to lie and rot, for none but the natives will eat the flesh; and although the skin of the large kangaroo can be tanned into an excellent leather, still it does not pay to skin the animal so far away from the coast. The only part that is used occasionally is the tail, from which a fine soup is produced.