Rambles of an Australian naturalist

Preface

It is always difficult to write a preface ; it is an art to write a good one. There are peculiar difficulties in scoring the overture to the present work, because it is only partially mine. I am at liberty to say that it was because Mr Ward did not feel sufficiently confident to write the book by himself that he sought my aid. I hope I have done justice to the mass of splendid material he has entrusted to me. I can truly say I have handled it with a loving care that has not been exceeded in the writing of any of my own books. Before I undertook the task of collating Mr Ward’s notes, I stipulated that I should be permitted to treat the book as my own. I regard it as a foster-child, but as dear to me as any of my own literary offspring.

Mr Ward is a Queensland stock-farmer, who, like myself, has amused himself in the intervals of a roughly laborious life with studying Nature in the wild, and prying into the wonders of her works. I am forbidden, by the position I have accepted, to say plainly what I think, or what I feel, of his ability as a field naturalist ; but I must say that his splendid powers of observation demanded that I should exert myself to the utmost to deal worthily with the material placed at my disposal.

My task has been to reduce the notes to readable form, collect the scattered information on specific subjects, and identify and supply the scientific names of species, etc. I have corrected some obvious mistakes ; but I have not vi PREFACE

interfered with Mr Ward’s facts or opinions, though some of the latter are in conflict with my own. I have maintained the first person in the narrative wherever it was possible to do so, and left Mr Ward to tell the story in his own language and style. In a word, I have confined myself to strictly necessary alterations and arrangements, feeling that the original narrative had a beauty and simplicity of its own which it would be a pity to spoil.

P. F.

March 1907.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. In the Blue Mountains . . . . i

II. Some of the Birds of the Blue Mountains 8

Chapter I In The Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains are plainly visible from my birthplace near Picton, New South Wales ; and their deep azure outline is one of my earliest recollections. The remarkable intensity of colour, and the equally remarkable contour of these rocks, attracted my boyish curiosity when I must have been very young : and I made several attempts to get to them on foot long before I was old enough and strong enough to perform so long a journey.

In every country there are natural features which are fondly thought of by the people of the land ; which are, as it were, the sylvan gods of the country ; and the Blue Mountains are precious in the sight of every true Australian. One of his first enquiries of a stranger is almost sure to be if he has seen the Blue Mountains? And these fine rocks are worthy of the high place to which the Australian exalts them.

The Blue Mountains are now much frequented by seekers after picturesque scenery and holiday makers, and several railways afford facilities for reaching the most accessible portions of them ; but during the days of my youth and early manhood, they were but very imperfectly known, even those parts which lie nearest to Sydney and other great centres of population, being only reached by a laborious journey, were seldom visited by any persons of refined and cultured mind — persons capable of giving an intelligent description of what they had seen.

Three young men, Blaxland, a squatter, Lawson, an

A

IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS army subaltern, and Wentworth, in after years a leading Australian statesman, were the first to find a path over the Blue Mountains ; but for several decades after their exploit the exploration of the range was left almost entirely to rough stockmen, whose chief, and perhaps sole, object was to find cattle-runs. One of the paths now most used, up which a prosperous railway winds its way, was discovered by a band of runaway convicts, who lurked in one of those singular valleys which are a striking feature of the mountains. Though they were traced to this valley, it was not until the police sought the help of aboriginal trackers that the entrance was discovered, and one of the largest of the now renowned exitless valleys was opened to the colonists. This, and other paths, have long since been improved ; but formerly many of them could only be used at imminent risk of life or limb ; and this is still the case with some remote and little-known passes.

One of the most difficult and dangerous that I have explored is about 40 miles north-west of Picton, and scarcely more than 12 south of the celebrated Penrith viaduct ; but owing to the roundabout route that must be taken to reach it, it is difficult to estimate the distances. This pass, which seems to be nameless in the survey, cannot be reached from the east side of the mountains, and will probably not be opened up until the quarrymen are attracted thither : for it is impossible for cattle to reach it. It took myself and two companions, under the guidance of an old prospector, five days to reach this spot : and the journey may be described as a sixtymile climb, the whole distance being a region of broken rock and rugged gully. Both the east and west sides of the mountain are here precipitous cliffs of great height, with a pretty level plateau at the top covered with forest. The valley beneath is a level plain, also covered with an unbroken forest of large gum trees, and bounded on all sides with walls of rock. These rocks project, like giant buttresses, into the valley, in many places forming headlands with deep recesses between them ; but though the

A BLUE MOUNTAIN ENCLOSED VALLEY 3 valley is quite seven miles long by four or five broad, forming a large bay, there is no descent into it. In one place we found a ledge of rock about eighty feet below the top of the cliff, sloping downwards, which seemed to promise a pathway into the valley below, and one of our party insisted on being lowered by a rope. At great risk to his life, he succeeded in working his way down three or four hundred feet, but could get no further, and had to return without effecting his purpose. The height of the cliffs was variously estimated at from a thousand to sixteen hundred feet. The lowest estimate is possibly nearest the truth. About the precipitous nature of the rocky wall there could not be two opinions : for stones thrown down could be seen to drop sheer into the valley below.

We had provisions and water with us, the latter being carried in collapsible skin bags with bone nozzles. By the end of the fifth day, both food and water were exhausted : and I had my first experiences of the suffering and hardship of Australian travel. For three days we were almost entirely without food. Water we found ; and our hunger we attempted to satisfy with berries and leaves, the reason, probably, that we all became very unwell, and reached Penrith in a state of great exhaustion.

On subsequent occasions I examined many others of these cliff-enclosed valleys ; some larger and many smaller than the one just described. The character of all is similar. The cliffs are composed of sandstone of a light grey colour in the lower strata, and of a dingy light crimson in the upper. This band of reddish colour has a very remarkable appearance ; and I could never discover the cause of it. It does not seem to be owing to the presence of iron in the strata ; and it is characteristic of the rocks throughout the Blue Mountains.

In most countries the valleys have been formed by the erosion of water, and generally have a stream, large or small, flowing through them. That is not the case here. Som.e of the valleys have a small river or brook in them, but not of sufficient size or force of current to affect the form of the valley, and it is clear that there never has been

IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS any great body of water in any of these remarkable recesses. In valleys which are from six to fifteen miles wide, I have found the strata of the opposite sides corresponding exactly, and of almost precisely the same height : while the bottoms of the valleys are level, or nearly level, plains, with occasionally a few scattered hills. There are no signs of water-wear, nor of the subsidence which Darwin thought might be a possible explanation of this unparalleled formation ; and I think it is a pity that he did not devote more time and care to the examination of what he rightly recognised and described as a geological enigma ; but which he unfortunately seems to have viewed with an impatience unusual in him.

Some of these enclosed valleys in the Blue Mountains have an area of more than a hundred square miles, with a depth of nearly two thousand feet, and yet have no opening through which the water of a small brook could escape. In a country with a fairly heavy annual rainfall these valleys would inevitably become deep lakes. Can they possibly be the beds of long extinct lakes, the waters of which have gradually soaked and evaporated away through some change of climatic conditions causing a cessation of the usual feeding supply? It is more likely that these valleys are the result of upheaval than of subsidence, and they may, at a remote period, have been saline lakes. Marine shells are very abundant in many places, but I have not found any other important remains that are likely to throw a light on the geological formation. Though many of the shells are of extinct species, a great number are identical with those still inhabiting the seas of the west and south coasts.

The vegetation of the valleys, if not rich, is abundant, and the forests are certainly valuable. Cattle thrive well in them, and they serve the purpose of immense parks from which it is impossible for the stock (as cattle in Australia are invariably called) to escape. The trees are no impediment to the grazing of cattle : for though the forest, viewed from above, appears to be dense, but few Australian forests have the density of tropical or European

PECULIARITIES OF THE VALLEYS forests ; there is nearly always room to move freely about among the trees, and the best herbage often grows under arboreous shelter.

There is a certain amount of drainage into the valleys, but it is not sufficient to make any part of them marshy. Brooks are occasionally found, but the waters of these scantily-fed channels rarely find an outlet through the environing cliffs, and in the few instances in which they do, the passages are narrow and choked with masses of rock, and show no signs of extensive water erosion, a pretty certain indication that the valleys have never been the channels of large rivers. The valleys, indeed, have the appearance of enormous rents in the cliffs, often narrowing at each end into rifts so confined that even a dog cannot force a way through them, though the enclosing walls are perhaps three or four hundred feet in height It may be positively asserted that these rifts do not owe their formation to water action. Water never runs through them in sufficient quantity, not even after heavy rains, to wash away any of the soil or rock, and they have probably existed for ages without modification of size or form.

Rills of water in many places run over the cliffs and fall, as pretty cascades, into the valleys beneath. Govett’s Leap is one of the best known and most often referred to of these cascades, but none of them have a sufficient body of water to entitle them to be considered “falls.” They are, nevertheless, much thought of by Australians, and many of them are the constant resort of holiday folks. Barriers, to prevent accidents, have been erected round the edges of the cliffs, and lordly hotels have been built for the accommodation of visitors — additions which are not always appreciated by lovers of unshorn Nature. The lover of Nature, however, need not despair if he is a man not averse to using his legs, and risking his neck, in an arduous climb. There are plenty of hidden spots, too difficult of access, and likely to remain so for many years, to be visited by any persons except those of a resolute and daring courage. There are spots in the mountains

IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS within easy distance of Picton or Penrith, that are as quiet and little frequented as they must have been in the days of Captain Cook. That is, they are practically unknown. An occasional Government inspector, or wandering prospector, may have visited them, but the foot of the average traveller or sight-seer has never trod the rock in the localities I have in my mind. Here are some of the most delightful of the valleys, though the smallness of their area has led to their being overlooked, and here it is that the naturalist has the best ^opportunities of studying the animal life of the Blue Mountains, though that life is not very abundant in any part of the range that I have visited.

I have spent hours cautiously walking among the trees on the summit of the range, hoping to make discovery of some new bird or mammal, and heard no sound except the mournful murmuring of the breeze in the tree-tops. Birds there are, it is true, but they are not often seen in great numbers, and the habit the people of Sydney, and the smaller townships, have of going to the mountains to shoot parrots and wallaby — a habit that was formerly very generally indulged in — has tended to reduce greatly the number of Australian birds. Wallaby are only found among the rocks on the lower slopes of the mountains, and about their bases. If they ever existed in the valleys, they have long since been exterminated. They have become scarce everywhere on the coast side of the range, the result of continual persecution by gunners from the towns, and stockmen anxious to preserve every blade of grass for the use of the cattle. The valleys, too, are free from the rabbit pest — that prolific, feeble folk not having succeeded in passing the forbidding line of barrier cliffs. Flying foxes, or phalangers, and opossums are found in many places, but as these animals are mostly nocturnal in their habits, they are not often seen unless specially watched for, and there is nothing to be recorded of them in this place.

A few snakes of the genus Dendrophis are met with ; and on two or three occasions I have seen diamond-snakes

FAUNA IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS at an elevation of at least three thousand feet above sea level. There are also a few lizards in the mountains ; but none of these reptiles are sufficiently numerous to be characteristic of the region.

Probably the aborigines never frequented these mountains ; and it seems certain that they never penetrated to the enclosed valleys. Even the rudest of wandering savages leave some records of their presence in a district ; but I could never find the slightest trace of the former presence of the natives in these districts; and it seems more than probable that the range proved as impenetrable to the blacks as it so long did to the whites. Strange that large tracts of the earth should lie for thousands of years apparently useless to man and beast ! Such, however, seems to have been the case in all the great divisions of the globe, so far as man and the larger animals are concerned.

Birds are the most attractive living objects in the Blue Mountains, and they are sadly few in number, and are daily becoming scarcer. Besides the parrots, whose destruction by holiday makers I have mentioned, the lyre-bird, one of the most characteristic birds of our continent, has been cruelly persecuted, so that it has not only been exterminated in many districts, but is now scarce everywhere, and in danger of total extinction. The Blue Mountains are, or were, the headquarters of this very remarkable bird, and of one or two others which must always be objects of deep interest to the true naturalist. I think these birds are worthy of a chapter to themselves ; and, accordingly, the next division of this little work is devoted to a description of what I have succeeded in learning about their ways and habits.

Chapter II • Some Of The Birds Of The Blue Mountains

My first shot was fired at a parrot when I was a boy of some twelve years. Well do I remember with what trepidation I aimed the gun, in spite of the assurance of older marksmen that it was an easy one to fire and would not “ kick,” and what joy rushed to my young heart when I saw the bird flutter, mortally hurt, to the ground.

Parrot-shooting is a favourite sport in Australia, and takes the place of rook-shooting in England. It was, I think, a more prevalent pastime in my youthful days than at present. Parrots were then more abundant than they are now ; and on public holidays, especially at Christmas time, people went out of the towns by hundreds, often for a week at a time, to shoot parrots. Parrot-pie is as much esteemed in Australia as rook-pie in England ; and if the birds are young, is quite as palatable. But an old parrot is one of the toughest birds that fly, and one of the hardest to kill. A parrot will carry away more shot than any other moderate-sized Australian bird, and must be very hard hit before it will drop. Perhaps this is the reason that it is considered to give such good sport to the fowler.

The Psittacidae, the Columbae, and the Anseres are three of the most characteristic orders of Australian birds, and are all well represented in New South Wales.

The parrots are usually associated with decidedly tropical scenery and climate; but though Australia is the headquarters of several well-marked groups, or families, of the order, they are largely met with in descriptions of country that can scarcely be called tropical, or even

SWAINSON’S LORIQUET sub-tropical. With very few exceptions Australian parrots and cockatoos frequent only the wooded portions of the land : although they are found, the cockatoos especially, along the courses of rivers which have a fringe of wood on their banks, though that fringe, in the west and north, is often very thin.

The first shot referred to above was at a Blue Mountain parrot, a species formerly very common in the vicinity of Sydney ; and I have even seen it on trees in the suburbs of that city. It is the Swainson’s loriquet, Trichoglossus nov(E hollandice^ of naturalists ; but though often called a lory, I never heard it described locally by its true name. It is still tolerably abundant in the interior parts of the colony ; and its beautiful plumage does not save it from being shot for the table. It is a honey-sucker, and for that reason many persons think that its flesh is superior in flavour to that of other parrots.

The crop of this bird is nearly always full of a sort of nectar which it extracts with its tongue from the sweet blossoms of the native honeysuckle ; and probably from many other flowers ; but it is a mistake to suppose, as many naturalists seem to do, that it does not consume more solid food ; for I have seen it eating many different kinds of bush fruits. It also often eats the flowers of the honeysuckle bodily ; and frequents the gardens of the western settlers for the plums and cherries which they delight to cultivate.

Many of the habits of Swainson’s loriquet greatly resemble those of pigeons. For instance: they go in pairs; and these pairs frequently join with others to form small flocks of ten or a dozen couples ; and on occasions, which seem to be dependent on a peculiar state of the weather, they collect in large flocks of one or two thousand. All these habits may be noticed in tree-frequenting species of pigeons. The loriquet, as well as some other parrots, flies much like a pigeon ; and when perched on a branch has several similar little tricks of movement. A sudden change of temperature will cause them to assemble in large flocks. They then wheel round in the air, perhaps many times, gradually mounting higher, and screaming almost as noisily as cockatoos, and finally fly off rapidly in a compact body. I suppose that they go in a pre-arranged direction, and that the object is to seek a warmer district. The whole attitude and manoeuvring of the birds seem to indicate that this is their purpose ; but how far they go, or to what description of country I have not been able to discover. They are capable of enduring a considerable degree of cold, and are often found at a great height in the mountains of all parts of New South Wales. I have several times seen flocks of them flying about in snow storms. They have, however, a great dislike to rain, and in wet weather hide away in hollow trees and under the broad leaves of palms and other plants. They breed in hollow trees, like the majority of parrots, but I watched one pair which reared their brood in a hole excavated with remarkable expedition in the bulky stem of a grass-tree not six feet from the ground. The eggs are usually two or four in number, and the few pairs of young birds which I have taken and reared were always couples — a cock and a hen. The old birds are very attentive to the young, and affectionate among themselves ; and the young are fed with the syrup, or honey, which the old birds eject from their crops for the purpose. This syrup is, I suppose, partially digested, a circumstance which may account for the difficulty which is experienced in rearing the young birds on artificial syrup or bee’s honey, but they will thrive on soft, pulpy fruit.

Swainson’s loriquet is a very noisy bird. It seldom takes flight without uttering loud screams, which might easily be mistaken for those of a cockatoo. It has also a peculiar wheedling note, used when caressing its mate, and which in captivity is often uttered when it is dreaming ; but it is not a good talker. It is often claimed by colonists that parrots of this species can be taught to utter amusing remarks ; but the sounds never seemed to me to be given very clearly. Its beautiful plumage and lively habits are its chief claims to interest as a pet. It is not remarkable for intelligence, and scarcely seems to recognise its owner.

THE LYRE-BIRD

Intelligence, I think, is always less marked in birds than it is in the higher class of vertebrates ; but there seem to be some noticeable exceptions, which may be described further on in these pages.

This loriquet is found on all parts of the east side of Australia, especially on the Blue Mountains, and the hills which form continuations of that range north and south. I have not seen it in the interior, west of these mountains ; but the large flocks mentioned above would sometimes, after much wheeling around and ascending to a great height, fly rapidly in the direction of the centre of the continent.

As many persons believe that snow is almost unknown in Australia, I may mention that falls of snow are of tolerably common occurrence in many parts of the Blue Mountains, though it never lies long on the ground. These snow storms seem to be more numerous periodically — at intervals of seven or eight years.

By far the most curious and interesting bird found in the Blue Mountains is the lyre-bird, of which two species are to be found on that part of the range which is nearest to Picton — the Menura superba and the M. albertu There is a third species found in the colony, but my remarks concern the M. superba only. The other two species are scarce, and all three are naturally, or have become through incessant persecution, extremely shy.

The lyre-bird is essentially a mountain-forest bird, and is solitary in its habits. It never assembles in flocks or parties, and in all my experience I have never seen more than a pair, or a pair and a young one, together ; generally solitary birds only are met with. Possibly the hen is never far away from the male bird, for they pair for life. But except at the breeding season they are not often seen actually together.

A general description of the bird’s plumage is scarcely necessary ; but in one particular all descriptions that I have read quite fail. And that is the peculiar tone^ so to speak, of the bird’s appearance. Were one of these birds produced with the assertion that it was an old-world species one could almost believe it. It certainly has an old-time, extinct, antediluvian appearance — the characteristic appearance, indeed, of several Australian birds and animals. The plumage is usually described as brown with reddish markings on the tail feathers, and grey under parts ; but in life, at anyrate, the tail coverts, most of the tail feathers, and the under parts, have a peculiar dust colour that I have not seen in any other bird, living or dead. This peculiar tone, combined with the remarkable form of the lyre-bird, gives it a unique appearance that is not exceeded by that of any other avian curiosity. It seems, in very fact, to be the strange inhabitant of an undeveloped, newly created land. That, at least, is the impression that it has always given to my mind.

The Blue Mountain range is, as I have said, the stronghold of the lyre-bird. There it can be seen and watched as it certainly cannot be in any other part of the country. It is there now more abundant than in any other district, though it might, perhaps, be more correct to say that this is the only part of the country where it is not practically exterminated. For a long time a good price was obtainable at Sydney for its feathers, and if a bird was ever seen within a hundred miles of that city it was tracked down and shot. Never numerous, it is now only found with difficulty in most parts of the colony. There are a few spots, however, in the mountains where it has not been disturbed, especially the isolated valleys which were described in the first chapter.

It has always been considered, by systematists, a puzzling bird, and has been allotted to at least half a dozen genera. Some thought it a thrush, others a wren. For a time it was a crow ; and when first discovered it was described as a gallinacious bird ; while the French naturalist Vieillot called it “ Parkinson’s Bird of Paradise,” a description which was accepted by an English ornithologist of some note. It is now usually placed among the Passeres, or perching-birds. In any case the lyre-birds are an aberrant family. Avian classification presents great difficulties; and the order Passeres (or perching-birds) as at

CLASSIFICATION OF THE LYRE-BIRD 13 present laid down is simply an ornithological receiving- ship where avain nondescripts are sent until they can be allotted to their proper stations. The Passeres form the bulk of the birds, and the order is a convenient one in which to place a bird that cannot be satisfactorily established in any other ; but I strongly doubt that it is a passere. On the other hand, so many Australian types of animals, of nearly all classes, are so manifestly aberrant that it behoves one to be chary of expressing an opinion.

Superficially the bird resembles some types of Indian pheasants, both in size and appearance. It is also like a crow, but it does not at all resemble a wren or a thrush. Judging, as he did, from a drawing only, Vieillot was justified in thinking it a bird of paradise, especially considering the region from which it was reported. The birds of paradise are, in my opinion, closely allied to the crows, but crow-like as is the lyre-bird, its plumage is not at all like that of the hard, glossy coruidce^ but is very full, and beautifully soft and fleecy to the touch. The hen has not the remarkable lyre-shaped tail which distinguishes the cock, but her tail is full and plume-like. The cock has also a crest of filamentous feathers. The legs and feet are adapted to swift running on the ground ; but though they can run very rapidly, they are sometimes caught by dogs. It is not a strong flyer, but rises without difficulty and flies much like a weak- winged crow. It soon drops, always choosing for the place of alighting a patch of dense scrub, in which it runs to some secure lurking-place, so that I have rarely succeeded in flushing one a second time. I have read of their ascending to the tops of tall trees, but have never seen such a thing. They sometimes perch on low branches a few feet above the ground, apparently for the purpose of surveying the ground, but never fly very high, and at the least sound they instantly drop to the ground, and run to shelter at full speed, uttering, two or three times, a single note of fright or warning. The lyre-bird is one of the most timid and cautious birds found on the Australian continent. Yet it is a pugnacious bird, and two cocks will sometimes fight fiercely, the source of jealousy being hard to discover. It does not seem to be for possession of the hen, but rather arises, I think, from a natural quarrelsomeness of disposition.