The boy explorers in darkest New Guinea

by Warren H. Miller

He pushed his way through the thickets, defiantly now, hoping that something would turn up worth shooting at. Presently he came to a little open glade grown up with saw grass, with a small pond in the center of it. As he burst through the thicket two animals rose up out of the grass across the pond and went jumping off, sailing over the yellow field in long leaps that carried them twenty feet to the bound. Nicky did not have to be told that they were wallabys, the New Guinea species of kangaroo. He whipped out his long-barreled Officer’s Model and poised its fine sights on the rearmost wallaby. He had learned through long practice that his revolver was as good as a rifle at any range up to seventy-five yards, if well handled, and he depended on it for all big game. As the gun barked, the wallaby pitched down, rolling over and over like a rabbit in the saw grass, its long hind legs kicking convulsively. The other wallaby soared in a frantic series of hops, and reached the jungle before the wavering sights of the revolver could be steadied on it.

Nicky started to dash through the grass around the pond after his prize, but the sudden soar of a small animal like a flying squirrel, but much larger, brought him to a full stop. It had left the topmost branches of a tall thorn tree on the edge of the jungle and had volplaned downward in a long flight across the opening. Nicky’s ready shotgun sprang to shoulder and he covered it in full flight and pulled trigger. The creature fell into the grass as he blew the smoke from his barrel and slipped in another shell. A single step forward developed more life, for a large green grasshopper like a katydid sprang from its depths, made a short flight, and lit near by. It had a peculiar shield like a leaf curved backward over its head. Nicky whipped off his helmet to capture it, for he recognized the great shielded grasshopper of New Guinea and he knew that Dwight would want it.

He crept forward stealthily, when his eye was attracted by the bright flash of orange and black where a medium-sized bird was hopping from branch to branch in the thicket to his right. One glance at the quantity of long feathers of an intense orange hue that adorned its neck told him that it was the rare paradise oriole, closely allied to the true paradise birds and a specimen of the utmost value to the curator.

Nicky raised his gun, embarrassed at all these sudden riches of natural history that surrounded him. It occurred to him that this little pond bore all the aspects of the African water hole, in that it attracted wild life as a sort of center, and that he could spend a long time right here without beginning to exhaust its possibilities. As the gun barked the bird fell tumbling through the thicket and the boy reloaded, wondering what new marvel would develop at his very next step. Then the grasshopper claimed his attention. It had made another short flight. This time the helmet scooped him in. He paused a moment to wonder over the remarkable camouflage that nature had provided for this insect, for the shield resembled a green leaf so closely that a passing hornet or bird, which were its chief enemies, would be completely deceived.

In lieu of a better place to put it, Nicky pinned it on his helmet and then resolutely trailed through the grass to find the small flying creature that he had shot, unmindful of the quantities of insects that he had stirred up, the very number and diversity of which would have driven Dwight into a frenzy.

“Must tell the old scout about this!” muttered the boy. “He’d camp here a week! Ought to be something in my line, too, around this water. Heigho! What in the dickens is this?” he exclaimed, picking up the animal. It looked like an opossum, but it had broad furry membranes extending from fore to hind leg exactly like our own flying squirrel.

“Flying opossum, by ginger!” cried the boy, for he had of course read up on all the natural history of New Guinea that is known. He examined the curious creature with all the sensations of the true naturalist. It is a far different thing to read of these examples of nature’s marvelous diversity, than to actually handle and examine the creatures themselves. Like all but two of New Guinea’s mammals, this was a marsupial, a reminder of that far time when all of Papua, Australia, and the adjacent islands connected by the shallow sea was one vast continent, entirely separated from Asia by deep sea. Why did this continent evolve marsupials in every form of animal life, even the bear and the wolf? Here was the counterpart of our flying squirrel, with the same protective capacity to fly, but a marsupial and by structure most closely allied to the opossums. It was surely a brave conundrum!

He retrieved the paradise oriole and started out to the pond again, but a sharp hiss in the grass stopped him like an electric shock. A black and mottled snake rose threateningly, with steely tongue quivering from its mouth. Nicky recoiled, shielding his eyes with his arm, for he had recognized with a shock of loathing fear the dreaded death adder of Papua, which can spit poison with considerable accuracy for more than six feet. He backed off rapidly, watching the snake narrowly, for he knew that it would attack with great swiftness, blinding his eyes before striking. Then his shotgun sprang to shoulder as the snake moved toward him through the grass, and he pulled trigger as its horned head appeared for an instant over the tubes. Out of the mist of smoke and the confusion of the recoil Nicky had time to realize but one thing—that head was still weaving toward him with the speed of an express train! It would not do to aim the gun again and so expose his eyes. He turned to fly, dropping his gun and tugging frantically at his parang. As it flashed from its wooden sheath he made a swift backhand slash with it, urged by the imminent horror of the snake being close behind him. He felt the parang’s blade cut bone, and at the same instant something soft and wet struck the back of his neck and a hot, irritating pain seared his flesh. Putting up his hand as he ran, he found his fingers covered with a pale yellow fluid that burnt where it touched. Nicky stopped at the thicket and faced about. A violent thrashing of coils in the grass behind him, now flashing up the white belly, now the mottled back, told him that he had beheaded the adder. He went back cautiously, for he appreciated now that the borders of that pond would be alive with snakes. He got to water finally, and began washing strenuously. The pain still kept up, however, and he could feel a large blister raising on the skin of his neck.

“I must get back to camp quickly, where the curator can paint me with iodine!” he muttered to himself. “What would happen if I should faint here in the jungle!”

He found the head of the death adder and wrapped it in his handkerchief and tied it to his belt. The body was about eight feet long. Dragging it over to the thicket, he hung it on a bush and then skirted around, keeping a sharp watch at his feet, and finally came out to the body of the wallaby.