The Birds of Australia, Vol. 1 of 7

by John Gould

In a country of such vast extent as Australia, spreading over so many degrees of latitude, we might naturally expect to find much diversity in the climate, and such is really the case. Van Diemen’s Land, from its isolated and more southern position, is cooler and characterized by greater humidity than Australia; its vegetation is therefore abundant, and its forests dense and difficult of access. The climate of the continent, on the other hand, between the 25th and 35th degrees of latitude, is much drier, and has a temperature which is probably higher than that of any other part of the world; the thermometer frequently rising to 110°, 120°, and even 130° in the shade; and this high temperature is not unfrequently increased by the hot winds which sweep over the country from the northward, and which indicate most strongly the parched and sterile nature of the interior. Unlike other hot countries, this great heat and dryness is unaccompanied by night dews, and the falls of rain being uncertain and irregular, droughts of many months’ duration sometimes occur, during which the rivers and lagoons are dried up, the land becomes a parched waste, vegetation is burnt up, and famine spreads destruction on every side. It is easier for the imagination to conceive than the pen to depict the horrors of so dreadful a visitation. The indigenous animals and birds retire to the mountains, or to more distant regions exempt from its influence. Thousands of sheep and oxen perish, bullocks are seen dead by the road-side or in the dried-up water-holes, to which, in the hope of relief, they had dragged themselves, there to fall and die; trees are cut down for the sake of the twigs as fodder; the flocks are driven to the mountains in the hope that water may there be found, and every effort is made to avert the impending ruin; but in spite of all that can be done the loss is extreme. At length a change takes place, rain falls abundantly, and the plains, on which but lately not a blade of herbage was to be seen, and over which the stillness of desolation reigned, become green with luxuriant vegetation. Orchideæ and thousands of flowers of the loveliest hues are profusely spread around, as if nature rejoiced in her renovation, and the grain springing up vigorously gives promise of an abundant harvest. This change from sterility to abundance in the vegetable world is accompanied by a correspondent increase of animal life, the waters become stocked with fish, the marshy districts with frogs and other reptiles; hosts of caterpillars and other insects make their appearance, and spreading over the surface of the country commence the work of devastation, which however is speedily checked by the birds of various kinds that follow in their train. Attracted by the abundance of food, hawks of three or four species, in flocks of hundreds, depart from their usual solitary habits, become gregarious and busy at the feast, and thousands of Straw-necked Ibises (Ibis spinicollis), and other species of the feathered race, revel in the profusion of a welcome banquet. It must not however be imagined that this change is effected without its attendant horrors; the heavy rains often filling the river-beds so suddenly, that the onward pouring flood carries with it everything that may impede its course; and woe to the unhappy settler whose house or grounds may lie within the influence of the overwhelming floods! A painful instance of the desolating effects of this sudden irruption of the waters came under my own observation while travelling in the plains bordering the Lower Namoi in New South Wales. On pulling up my horse at one of the huts erected by the stock-keepers charged with the flocks and herds depastured in this vast grazing-ground, I found it occupied by Lieut. Lowe and his nephew, who had gone thither for the purpose of being present at the shearing of the flocks belonging to the former gentleman. Although strangers, their reception of me was warm and hospitable, and I left them with a promise of making their abode a resting-place on my return. My second welcome was such as friends receive from friends, and rejoicing that I had made the acquaintance of persons so worthy and estimable, I left them busy in their operations, happy and prosperous. Seven days after my departure from their dwelling heavy rains suddenly set in; the mountain-streams swelled into foaming torrents, filling the deep gullies; the rivers rose, some to the height of forty feet, bearing all before them. The Namoi having widely overflowed its banks, rolled along with impetuous fury, sweeping away the huts of the stock-keepers in its course, tearing up trees, and hurrying affrighted men and flocks to destruction. Before there was time to escape, the hut in which Lieut. Lowe and his nephew were sojourning was torn up and washed away, and the nephew and two men, overwhelmed by the torrent, sank and perished. Lieut. Lowe stripped to swim, and getting on the trunk of an uprooted tree, hoped to be carried down the eddying flood to some part where he could obtain assistance. But he was floated into the midst of a sea of water stretching as far as he could discern on every side around him. Here he slowly drifted; the rains had ceased, the thermometer was at 100°, a glaring sun and a coppery sky were above him; he looked in vain for help, but no prospect of escape animated him, and the hot sun began its dreadful work. His skin blistered, dried, became parched and hard, like the bark of a tree, and life began to ebb. At length assistance arrived—it came too late; he was indeed just alive, but died almost immediately. He was scorched to death.

Sir Thomas Mitchell, in his recently published “Journal of an Expedition into the interior of Tropical Australia,” has given a most vivid picture of the manner in which floods occasioned by distant rains fill the river-beds, and which I beg leave to transcribe. Sir Thomas being somewhat unwell while encamped on the banks of the Macquarie, the channel of which was deep and dry, sent Mr. Stephenson, one of his party, to Mount Foster, to make inquiries about the river and the stations on it lower down. Mr. Stephenson returned early with two of the mounted police. To his most important question, “What water was to be found lower down in the river, the reply was, ‘Plenty, and a flood coming down from the Turòn mountains.’ The two policemen said that they had travelled twenty miles with it on the day previous, and that it would still take some time to arrive near our camp.... In the afternoon, two of the men taking a walk up the river, reported on their return, that the flood poured in upon them when in the river-bed so suddenly, that they narrowly escaped it. Still the bed of the Macquarie before our camp continued so dry and silent, that I could scarcely believe the flood coming to be real, and so near to us, who had been put to so many shifts for the want of water. Towards evening I stationed a man with a gun a little way up the river, with orders to fire on the flood’s appearance, that I might have time to run and witness what I so much wished to see, as well from curiosity as from urgent need. The shades of evening came, however, but no flood, and the man on the look-out returned to the camp. Some hours later, and after the moon had risen, a murmuring sound, like that of a distant waterfall, mingled with occasional cracks, as of breaking timber, drew our attention, and I hastened to the river-bank. By very slow degrees the sound grew louder, and at length so audible as to draw various persons besides from the camp to the river-side. Still no flood appeared, although its approach was indicated by the occasional rending of trees with a loud noise. Such a phænomenon in a most serene moonlight night was new to us all. At length the rushing sound of waters, and loud cracking of timber, announced that the flood was in the next bend. It rushed into our sight, glittering in the moonbeams, a moving cataract, tossing before it ancient trees, and snapping them against its banks. It was preceded by a point of meandering water, picking its way, like a thing of life, through the deepest parts of the dark, dry and shady bed, of what thus again became a flowing river. By my party, situated as we were at that time, beating about the country, and impeded in our journey solely by the almost total absence of water,—suffering excessively from thirst and extreme heat,—I am convinced the scene never can be forgotten. Here came at once abundance, the produce of storms in the far-off mountains that overlooked our homes.... The river gradually filled up the channel nearly bank-high, while the living cataract travelled onward much slower than I had expected to see it; so slowly, indeed, that more than an hour after its first arrival the sweet music of the head of the flood was distinctly audible, as the murmur of waters and diapason crash of logs travelled slowly through the tortuous windings.... The next morning the river had risen to within six feet of the top of its banks, and poured its turbid waters along in fulness and strength, but no longer with noise. All night that body of water had been in motion downwards, and seemed to me enough to deluge the whole country.”

So little has as yet been ascertained respecting the climatology of western, north-western and northern Australia, that it is not known whether they also are subject to these tremendous visitations; but as we have reason to believe that the intertropical parts of the country are favoured with a more constant supply of rain as well as a lower degree of temperature, it is most probable that they do not there occur.

Independently of the vast accession of birds attracted by the great supply of food, as mentioned above, there are many species which make regular migrations, visiting the southern parts of the continent and Van Diemen’s Land during the months of summer, for the purpose of breeding and rearing their progeny, and which retire again northwards on the approach of winter, following in fact the same law which governs the migrations of the species inhabiting similar latitudes of the Old World. There are also periods when some species of birds appear to entirely forsake the part of the country in which they have been accustomed to dwell, and to betake themselves to some distant locality, where they remain for five or ten years, or even for a longer period, and whence they as suddenly disappear as they had arrived. Some remarkable instances of this kind came under my own observation. The beautiful little warbling Grass Parrakeet (Melopsittacus undulatus), which, prior to 1838, was so rare in the southern parts of Australia that only a single example had been sent to Europe, arrived in that year in such countless multitudes on the Liverpool plains, that I could have procured any number of specimens, and more than once their delicate bodies formed an excellent article of food for myself and party. The Nymphicus Novæ-Hollandiæ forms another case in point, and the Harlequin Bronze-winged Pigeon (Peristera histrionica) a third; this latter bird occurred in such numbers on the plains near the Namoi in 1839, that eight fell to a single discharge of my gun; both the settlers and natives assured me that they had suddenly arrived, and that they had never before been seen in that part of the country. The aborigines who were with me, and of whom I must speak in the highest praise, for the readiness with which they rendered me their assistance, affirmed, upon learning the nature of my pursuits, that they had come to meet me. The Tribonyx ventralis may be cited as another species whose movements are influenced by the same law. This bird visited the colony of Swan River in 1833, and that of South Australia in 1840, in such countless myriads, that whole fields of corn were trodden down and destroyed in a single night; and even the streets and gardens of Adelaide were, according to Captain Sturt, alive with them.

If we compare the ornithology of Australia with that of any other country in similar latitudes and of the same extent, we shall find that it fully equals, if it does not exceed them all, in the number of species it comprises; and those parts of the country that are still unexplored doubtless contain many yet to be added to the list of its Fauna.

In the course of the present work it will be found that I have given a wide range of habitat to some of the species, and that I have at the same time pointed out slight variations, not amounting to a specific difference, in individuals from different localities. This difference I am unable to account for. I do not believe the birds to be distinct species, but am inclined to regard them as varieties or races of the same species, modified by the character of the situations they frequent. I may mention some curious instances in point: the Artamus sordidus is a migratory bird in Van Diemen’s Land, and is partially stationary in New South Wales, yet all the examples procured in the former country are the largest and most vigorous, which we should naturally attribute to the excess of food afforded by its more humid climate; but precisely the reverse of this occurs with regard to the Graucalus parvirostris, which is also a migratory bird in Van Diemen’s Land, and examples of which, killed in that island, are much more feeble and diminutive than the Graucali obtained in New South Wales. The Halcyon sanctus, again, whose distribution is universal in Australia, varies somewhat in size in every colony, still not sufficiently so as to afford any tangible specific characters.

Upon taking a general view of the Australian ornithology, we find no species of Vulture, only one typical Eagle, and indeed a remarkable deficiency in the number of the species of its birds of prey, with the exception of the nocturnal Owls, among which the members of the restricted genus Strix are more numerous than in any other part of the world; a circumstance which is probably attributable to the great abundance of small nocturnal quadrupeds.

Among the perching birds there is a great excess of the Insectivoræ—Podargi, Meliphagidæ, Maluridæ, Gymnorhinæ, &c., of the Granivoræ, such as various species of the Fringillidæ and of the Psittacidæ. The latter tribe of birds is more numerous in Australia than in any other part of the world, and forms four great groups, viz. the Calyptorhynchi, which mainly procure their food from the Banksiæ, Casuarinæ and Eucalypti; the Cacatuæ, which feed upon the terrestrial Orchideæ, &c.; the Trichoglossi, which subsist upon the nectar they extract from the flower-cups and blossoms of the Eucalypti; and the ground and grass Parrakeets, which feed almost exclusively on the seeds of the various grasses that abound on the plains; the united groups amounting to nearly sixty species.

Of the Rasorial forms,—while the Pigeons and Hemipodes are numerous, the larger and typical Gallinaceæ are entirely wanting; their only representatives being a few species of Coturnix and Synoïcus. The Grallatorial birds are about equal in number to those of other countries; and among the water birds the true Ducks are but few, while the Procellaridæ which visit the coast are more abundant than in any other part of the world. On a retrospect of the whole we find a greater number of nocturnal birds than is comprised in the ornithology of any other section of the globe. I must not omit to mention too the extraordinary fecundity which prevails in Australia, many of its smaller birds breeding three or four times in a season; but laying fewer eggs in the early spring when insect life is less developed, and a greater number later in the season when the supply of insect food has become more abundant. I have also some reason to believe that the young of many species breed during the first season, for among others I frequently found one section of the Honey-eaters (the Melithrepti) sitting upon eggs while still clothed in the brown dress of immaturity; and we know that such is the case with the introduced Gallinaceæ, three or four generations of which have been often produced in the course of a year.

Another peculiar feature connected with the Australian ornithology is that of its comprising several forms endowed with the power of sustaining and enjoying life without a supply of water, that element without which most others languish and die; for instance, the Halcyons, which I found living and even breeding on the parched plains of the interior during the severe drought of 1838–39, far removed from any water; the food of these birds being insects and lizards.