THE SOUTH SEA CORNCRAKE
Although I had often heard of the “corncrake” or landrail of the British Isles, I did not see one until a few years ago, on my first visit to Ireland, when a field labourer in County Louth brought me a couple, which he had killed in a field of oats. I looked at them with interest, and at once recognised a striking likeness in shape, markings and plumage to an old acquaintance—the shy and rather rare “banana-bird” of some of the Polynesian and Melanesian Islands. I had frequently when in Ireland heard at night, during the summer months, the repeated and harsh “crake, crake,” of many of these birds, issuing from the fields of growing corn, and was very curious to see one, for the unmelodious cry was exactly like that of the kili vao, or “banana-bird” of the Pacific Islands. And when I saw the two corncrakes I found them to be practically the same bird, though but half the size of the kili vao.
Kili vao in native means bush-snipe, as distinct from kili fusi, swamp snipe. It feeds upon ripe bananas, and papaws (mamee apples), and such other sweet fruit, that when over-ripe fall to the ground. It is very seldom seen in the day-time, when the sun is strong, though its hoarse frog-like note may often be heard in cultivated banana plantations, or on the mountain sides, where the wild banana thrives. At early dawn, or towards sunset, however, they come out from their retreats, and search for fallen bananas, papaws or guavas, and I have spent many a delightful half-hour watching them from my own hiding-place. Although they have such thick, long and clumsy legs, and coarse splay feet they run to and fro with marvelous speed, continually uttering their insistent croak. Usually they were in pairs, male and female, although I once saw a male and three female birds together. The former can easily be recognised, for it is considerably larger than its mate, and the coloration of the plumage on the back and about the eyes is more pronounced, and the beautiful quail-like semi-circular belly markings are more clearly defined. When disturbed, and if unable to run into hiding among the dead banana leaves, they rise and present a ludicrous appearance, for their legs hang down almost straight, and their flight is slow, clumsy and laborious, and seldom extends more than fifty yards.
The natives of the Banks and Santa Cruz Groups (north of the New Hebrides) assert that the kili is a ventriloquist, and delights to “fool” any one attempting to capture it. “If you hear it call from the right, it is hiding to the left; and its mate is perhaps only two fathoms away from you, hiding under the fallen banana leaves, and pretending to be dead. And you will never find either, unless it is a dark night, and you suddenly light a big torch of dried coco-nut leaves; then they become dazed and stupid, and will let you catch them with your hand.”
Whilst one cannot accept the ventriloquial theory, there can be no doubt of the extraordinary cunning in hiding, and noiseless speed on foot of these birds when disturbed. One afternoon, near sunset, I was returning from pigeon-shooting on Ureparapara (Banks Group) when in walking along the margin of a taro-swamp, which was surrounded by banana trees, a big kili rose right in front of me, and before I could bring my gun to shoulder, my native boy hurled his shoulder-stick at it and brought it down, dead. Then he called to me to be ready for a shot at the mate, which, he said, was close by in hiding.
Walking very gently, he carefully scanned the dead leaves at the foot of the banana trees, and silently pointed to a heap which was soddened by rain.
“It is underneath there,” he whispered, then flung himself upon the heap of leaves, and in a few seconds dragged out the prize—a fine full-grown female bird, beautifully marked. I put her in my game-bag. During our two-mile walk to the village she behaved in a disgusting manner, and so befouled herself (after the manner of a young Australian curlew when captured) that she presented a repellent appearance, and had such a disgusting odour that I was at first inclined to throw her—game-bag and all—away. However, my native boy washed her, and then we put her in a native pigeon cage. In the morning she was quite clean and dry, but persistently hid her head when any one approached, refused to take food and died two days later, although I kept the cage in a dark place.
These birds are excellent eating when not too fat; but when the papaws are ripe they become grossly unwieldy, and the whole body is covered with thick yellow fat, and the flesh has the strong sweet taste of the papaw. At this time, so the natives say, they are actually unable to rise for flight, and are easily captured by the women and children at work in the banana and taro plantations.
(Apropos of this common tendency of the flesh of birds to acquire the taste of their principal article of food, I may mention that in those Melanesian Islands where the small Chili pepper grows wild, the pigeons at certain times of the year feed almost exclusively upon the ripe berries, and their flesh is so pungent as to be almost uneatable. At one place on the littoral of New Britain, there is a patch of country covered with pepper trees, and it is visited by thousands of pigeons, who devour the berries, although their ordinary food of sweet berries was available in profusion in the mountain forests.)