Part 44

The following account of its habits is taken from Mr. Gilbert’s notes; and, novel and extraordinary as my description of those of Talegalla and Leipoa may have been considered, this will be read with even greater interest.

“On my arrival at Port Essington my attention was attracted to numerous immense mounds of earth, which were pointed out to me by some of the residents as the tumuli of the aborigines; on the other hand I was assured by the natives that they were formed by the Jungle-fowl for the purpose of incubating its eggs: their statement appeared so extraordinary, and so much at variance with the general habits of birds, that no one in the settlement believed them, or took sufficient interest in the matter to examine the mounds, and thus to verify or refute their accounts; another circumstance which induced a doubt of their veracity, was the great size of the eggs brought in by the natives as those of this bird. Aware that the eggs of Leipoa were hatched in a similar manner, my attention was immediately arrested by these accounts, and I at once determined to ascertain all I possibly could respecting so singular a feature in the bird’s economy; and having procured the assistance of a very intelligent native, who undertook to guide me to the different places resorted to by the bird, I proceeded on the sixteenth of November to Knocker’s Bay, a part of Port Essington Harbour comparatively but little known, and where I had been informed a number of these birds were always to be seen. I landed beside a thicket, and had not proceeded far from the shore ere I came to a mound of sand and shells, with a slight mixture of black soil, the base resting on a sandy beach, only a few feet above high water mark; it was enveloped in the large yellow-blossomed Hibiscus, was of a conical form, twenty feet in circumference at the base, and about five feet in height. On pointing it out to the native and asking him what it was, he replied, ‘Oooregoorgā Rambal,’ Jungle-fowls’ house or nest. I then scrambled up the sides of it, and to my extreme delight found a young bird in a hole about two feet deep; it was lying on a few dry withered leaves, and appeared to be only a few days old. So far I was satisfied that these mounds had some connexion with the bird’s mode of incubation; but I was still sceptical as to the probability of these young birds ascending from so great a depth as the natives represented, and my suspicions were confirmed by my being unable to induce the native, in this instance, to search for the eggs, his excuse being that ‘he knew it would be of no use, as he saw no traces of the old birds having recently been there.’ I took the utmost care of the young bird, intending to rear it if possible; I therefore obtained a moderately sized box, and placed in it a large portion of sand. As it fed rather freely on bruised Indian corn I was in full hopes of succeeding, but it proved of so wild and intractable a disposition that it would not reconcile itself to such close confinement, and effected its escape on the third day. During the period it remained in captivity it was incessantly occupied in scratching up the sand into heaps, and the rapidity with which it threw the sand from one end of the box to the other was quite surprising for so young and small a bird, its size not being larger than that of a small quail. At night it was so restless that I was constantly kept awake by the noise it made in its endeavours to escape. In scratching up the sand it only used one foot, and having grasped a handful as it were, the sand was thrown behind it, with but little apparent exertion, and without shifting its standing position on the other leg; this habit seemed to be the result of an innate restless disposition and a desire to use its powerful feet, and to have but little connexion with its feeding; for although Indian corn was mixed with the sand, I never detected the bird in picking any of it up while thus employed.

“I continued to receive the eggs without having an opportunity of seeing them taken from the mound until the sixth of February, when on again visiting Knocker’s Bay I had the gratification of seeing two taken from a depth of six feet, in one of the largest mounds I had then seen. In this instance the holes ran down in an oblique direction from the centre towards the outer slope of the hillock, so that although the eggs were six feet deep from the summit, they were only two or three feet from the side. The birds are said to lay but a single egg in each hole, and after the egg is deposited the earth is immediately thrown down lightly until the hole is filled up; the upper part of the mound is then smoothed and rounded over. It is easily known when a Jungle-fowl has been recently excavating, from the distinct impressions of its feet on the top and sides of the mound, and the earth being so lightly thrown over, that with a slender stick the direction of the hole is readily detected, the ease or difficulty of thrusting the stick down indicating the length of time that may have elapsed since the bird’s operations. Thus far it is easy enough; but to reach the eggs requires no little exertion and perseverance. The natives dig them up with their hands alone, and only make sufficient room to admit their bodies, and to throw out the earth between their legs; by grubbing with their fingers alone they are enabled to follow the direction of the hole with greater certainty, which will sometimes, at a depth of several feet, turn off abruptly at right angles, its direct course being obstructed by a clump of wood or some other impediment. Their patience is, however, often put to severe trials. In the present instance the native dug down six times in succession to a depth of at least six or seven feet without finding an egg, and at the last attempt came up in such a state of exhaustion that he refused to try again; but my interest was now too much excited to relinquish the opportunity of verifying the native’s statements, and by the offer of an additional reward I induced him to try again: this seventh trial proved successful, and my gratification was complete, when the native with equal pride and satisfaction held up an egg, and after two or three more attempts produced a second; thus proving how cautious Europeans should be of disregarding the narratives of these poor children of nature, because they happen to sound extraordinary or different from anything with which they were previously acquainted.

“I revisited Knocker’s Bay on the tenth of February, and having with some difficulty penetrated into a dense thicket of canelike creeping plants, I suddenly found myself beside a mound of gigantic proportions. It was fifteen feet in height and sixty in circumference at the base, the upper part being about a third less, and was entirely composed of the richest description of light vegetable mould; on the top were very recent marks of the bird’s feet. The native and myself immediately set to work, and after an hour’s extreme labour, rendered the more fatiguing from the excessive heat, and the tormenting attacks of myriads of mosquitoes and sand-flies, I succeeded in obtaining an egg from a depth of about five feet; it was in a perpendicular position, with the earth surrounding and very lightly touching it on all sides, and without any other material to impart warmth, which in fact did not appear necessary, the mound being quite warm to the hands. The holes in this mound commenced at the outer edge of the summit, and ran down obliquely towards the centre; their direction therefore is not uniform. Like the majority of the mounds I have seen, this was so enveloped in thickly foliaged trees as to preclude the possibility of the sun’s rays reaching any part of it.

“The mounds differ very much in their composition, form and situation: most of those that are placed near the water’s edge were formed of sand and shells without a vestige of any other material, but in some of them I met with a portion of soil and decaying wood; when constructed of this loose material they are very irregular in outline, and often resemble a bank thrown up by a constant heavy surf. One remarkable specimen of this description, situated on the southern side of Knocker’s Bay, has the appearance of a bank, from twenty-five to thirty feet in length, with an average height of five feet; another even more singular is situated at the head of the harbour, and is composed entirely of pebbly iron-stone, resembling a confused heap of sifted gravel; into this I dug to the depth of two or three feet without finding any change of character; it may have been conical originally, but is now without any regularity, and is very extensive, covering a space of at least a hundred and fifty feet in circumference. These remarkable specimens would, however, seem to be exceptions, as by far the greater number are entirely formed of light black vegetable soil, are of a conical form, and are situated in the densest thickets. Occasionally the mounds are met with in barren, rocky and sandy situations, where not a particle of soil similar to that of which they are composed occurs for miles around: how the soil is produced in such situations appears unaccountable; it has been said that the parent birds bring it from a great distance; but as we have seen that they readily adapt themselves to the difference of situation, this is scarcely probable: I conceive that they collect the dead leaves and other vegetable matter that may be at hand, and which decomposing forms this particular description of soil. The mounds are doubtless the work of many years, and of many birds in succession; some of them are evidently very ancient, trees being often seen growing from their sides; in one instance I found a tree growing from the middle of a mound which was a foot in diameter. I endeavoured to glean from the natives how the young effect their escape; but on this point they do not agree; some asserting that they find their way unaided; others on the contrary affirmed that the old birds, knowing when the young are ready to emerge from their confinement, scratch down and release them.

“The natives say that only a single pair of birds are ever found at one mound at a time, and such, judging from my own observation, I believe to be the case; they also affirm that the eggs are deposited at night, at intervals of several days, and this I also believe to be correct, as four eggs taken on the same day, and from the same mound, contained young in different stages of development; and the fact that they are always placed perpendicularly is established by the concurring testimony of all the different tribes of natives I have questioned on the subject.

“The Jungle-fowl is almost exclusively confined to the dense thickets immediately adjacent to the sea-beach; it appears never to go far inland, except along the banks of creeks. It is always met with in pairs or quite solitary, and feeds on the ground, its food consisting of roots, which its powerful claws enable it to scratch up with the utmost facility, and also of seeds, berries and insects, particularly the larger species of coleoptera.

“It is at all times a very difficult bird to procure; for although the rustling noise produced by its stiff pinions when flying may be frequently heard, the bird itself is seldom to be seen. Its flight is heavy and unsustained in the extreme; when first disturbed it invariably flies to a tree, and on alighting stretches out its head and neck in a straight line with its body, remaining in this position as stationary and motionless as the branch upon which it is perched; if, however, it becomes fairly alarmed, it takes a horizontal but laborious flight for about a hundred yards, with its legs hanging down as if broken. I did not myself detect any note or cry; but from the natives’ description and imitation of it, it much resembles the clucking of the domestic fowl, ending with a scream like that of the peacock.

“I observed that the birds continued to lay from the latter part of August to March, when I left that part of the country; and, according to the testimony of the natives, there is only an interval of about four or five months, the driest and hottest part of the year, between their seasons of incubation. The composition of the mound appears to influence the colouring of a thin epidermis with which the eggs are covered, and which readily chips off, showing the true shell to be white; those deposited in the black soil are always of a dark reddish brown, while those from the sandy hillocks near the beach are of a dirty yellowish white; they differ a good deal in size, but in form they all assimilate, both ends being equal; they are three inches and five lines long by two inches and three lines broad.”

Head and crest very deep cinnamon-brown; back of the neck and all the under surface very dark gray; back and wings cinnamon-brown; upper and under tail-coverts dark chestnut-brown; tail blackish brown; irides generally dark brown, but in some specimens light reddish brown; bill reddish brown, with yellow edges; tarsi and feet bright orange, the scales on the front of the tarsi from the fourth downwards, and the scales of the toes dark reddish brown.

The figure is about one-fifth less than the natural size.

PEDIONOMUS TORQUATUS: Gould.

J. & E. Gould del. C. Hullmandel Imp. ]

PEDIONOMUS TORQUATUS, Gould. Collared Plain Wanderer.

Pedionomus torquatus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., September 8, 1840.

The structure of this singular little bird is admirably adapted for inhabiting those extensive and arid plains which characterize many of the central portions of Australia; and we may reasonably suppose, that whenever its vast interior shall be explored, other species of this new form will be discovered. The bird forming the subject of the present Plate was received from Mr. Strange, who merely stated that he killed it on the plains, near Adelaide. I also learn from Captain Grey, that Mr. Hack, of Adelaide, had a dog which was constantly in the habit of catching a small quail-like bird while hunting over those plains, and which is doubtless identical with the present, as a second species I obtained on Gawler Plains was caught in a similar way by one of my dogs.

Its lengthened and bustard-like legs are admirably suited for running, while its short round and concave wings are as little adapted for extensive flight; the general contour of this little Wanderer in fact suggests the idea of a diminutive Bustard; and were its legs not furnished with a hind toe, it would range very near to that group. It has also several characters in common with Hemipodius, and a bird from Africa, figured by Mr. Swainson in his “Zoological Illustrations” under the name of Hemipodius nivosus, but which in his more recently published “Classification of Birds” he has placed in the genus Ortygis of Illiger.

I regret to say I am unable to give any account of its habits and economy; but I trust that my friend Captain Sturt, who is resident near the locality it inhabits, and whose ardent love of Natural History will induce him to pay every attention to the subject, may be able to collect the requisite information on these interesting points, in which case his observations will be included in the present work.

Crown of the head reddish brown, speckled with black; sides of the head and the neck light buff, speckled with black; neck surrounded by a broad band of white, thickly spotted with black; all the upper surface reddish brown, each feather having several transverse crescent-shaped marks in the centre, and margined with buff; tail buff, crossed by numerous narrow brown bars; centre of the breast rufous, the remainder of the under surface buff; the feathers on the breast marked in a similar manner to those on the upper surface, and the flanks with large irregular spots of black; irides straw-yellow; bill yellow, passing into black at the point; feet greenish yellow.

The figures are of the natural size.

HEMIPODIUS MELANOGASTER: Gould.

J. Gould and H.C. Richter del et lith. Hullmandel & Walton Imp. ]

HEMIPODIUS MELANOGASTER, Gould. Black-breasted Hemipode.

Hemipodius melanogaster, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 7.

Australia may be said to constitute the great nursery of the Hemipodes; for no other country is inhabited by so many species, and certainly there is not a finer one in existence than the subject of the present Plate. Future research will doubtless furnish others, and in all probability the interior, at present a terra incognita, will not be wanting in species of a form peculiarly adapted to inhabit the sterile kind of country of which it is supposed to consist.

I regret that, never having seen this species in a state of nature, I am unable to render any account of its habits and economy. It is a native of the eastern portion of Australia; specimens in my own collection, and in those of the Zoological Society and King’s College, London, were all procured at Moreton Bay. Judging from analogy, I presume that the sexes present little or no difference in their markings; until we are enabled to resort to dissection, we cannot with certainty ascertain whether the same disparity in the size of the sexes occurs in this species as in the other members of the genus; in all probability the female will be found to exceed the male.

Crown of the head, ear-coverts, throat and centre of the abdomen black; over each eye extends a line of feathers having each a small white spot at the tip; this line extends to the nape, which part is also thickly spotted with white on a black and chestnut-coloured ground; feathers on the sides of the chest and flanks black, having a large crescent-shaped marking of white near the tip; mantle and upper part of the back rich chestnut brown, each feather having a spot of white and a stripe of black on each side, and barred with black at or near the tip; shoulders, greater and lesser wing-coverts rufous brown, each feather having a white spot surrounded with a black line; primaries dark brown; thighs and upper and under tail-coverts brown, freckled and crossed with black; bill light brown; feet flesh-colour.

The Plate represents the bird of the natural size.