[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GIANT KINGFISHER, OR LAUGHING JACKa.s.s.]
The largest game bird is the emu, but it is not pursued by sportsmen.
The chase is cruel, and is only indulged in by stockmen and Bohemians of the plain, who traffic in the skins, for which, unfortunately for the emu, there is a good commercial demand. Before a horse can be of any service as an emu hunter he must become accustomed to the peculiar rustling sound of the long light tail-feathers when the bird is in rapid motion. Further, he must be sound of wind and limb to keep alongside an emu; and these virtues are centred in some of the veteran stock-horses, which by long practice have become accustomed to tread closely upon the heels of a racer while the rider uses his long stock-whip. Swerve as the hunted animal may, the old stock-horse never leaves the line. In this way the emu is generally run down, only horse and whip being used. At first he runs with a long clean swinging stride, but as he tires the legs bend outward and get farther apart, until the movement is more akin to the waddle of a fat barn-yard goose. He struggles along bravely until every fragment of strength is gone, and then falls never to rise again.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EMU.]
The finest game-bird in Australia is the bustard, or wild turkey, which is found all over the continent, but more plentifully in the Western District of Victoria. On those clear frosty winter mornings peculiar to the interior you may see them standing rigidly out in the centre of the plain, as though the cold of the night had frozen them into bird-statues. As they avoid the timber, and keep almost constantly to the open, it is only by artifice that the sportsman can get within range. For generations they have been stalked by the blacks, and have thus inherited a dread of man when on foot. They are shot without much difficulty from the saddle or a vehicle, the usual method being to drive round the bird in narrowing circles until within range.
The native companion, a bird of very much the same habits and size as the wild turkey, but very different from him in plumage and appearance, also frequents the plains, and is often found in very large flocks.
Although not generally esteemed as a table bird, he sometimes finds his way into the game market, plucked and dressed, and masquerading as a turkey. An occasional blue feather beneath the wing instead of the spangled grey of the turkey now and again betrays the deception, but, as the birds at table are accepted by all except experts as being genuine wild turkeys, the difference in the flavour of the bird is not very marked.
Wild ducks are almost universal in Australia. The finest of them all is the beautiful mountain duck, found all over the continent, but which seems more closely a.s.sociated with the woods and waters of Lake George, in New South Wales. On this broad sheet of water they float in countless thousands, and nest in the thickets upon its banks. Next to them in size comes the black duck, a long low bird as seen in the water, and one of the finest of Australian wild ducks. The wood-duck is, according to strict scientific cla.s.sification, a diminutive goose. It has the head, bill, and body of a goose, and yet in popular estimation it is, and always will be, a wild duck, and one of the most beautifully plumaged of Australian ducks. The drakes have some of the brilliant tints of the English mallard, and the neck and head are a rich velvet brown, while the breast-feathers are beautifully spangled. The Australian teal is much larger than the English bird, but otherwise not unlike it. These four varieties are the best known, but the widgeon and blue-wing are also plentiful, and outside these are at least half a dozen varieties less familiar to Australian sportsmen.
The black swan can hardly be called a game bird, but it is shot on all the lakes and swamps along the southern coast. In the Gippsland lakes it is not an uncommon thing to find thousands of swans in a single flock, and when these rise for a flight, striking the water with feet and wings, the noise can be heard for miles across the lake. When means have been taken to get rid of a rather rank flavour, just as the taste of the gum-leaves is removed from opossum flesh, the swan is occasionally eaten as game. Both swans and ducks are very largely shot from light punts, and for many years punt and swivel guns were used with terrible destruction by men whose business it was to supply the game markets of the large cities. In Victoria the Legislature has by enactment declared the swivel gun an illegal instrument, and since its abolition the ducks are returning in hundreds to their old breeding-grounds.
Smaller game is abundant everywhere. The snipe, as nearly as possible a prototype of the British bird, provides good shooting, more especially in Gippsland. British epicures would be shocked at the uses to which the bird is put in rough bush cookery, where its virtues are held in small esteem. An Irish recipe for cooking a snipe is merely to burn its bill in a candle, but some Australian cooks go to the other extreme. One recipient of a present of a few brace "just fried them with steak." The heresy as regards the steak was bad enough, but such treatment of snipe was altogether unpardonable. The Argus snipe is a rare but rather beautiful bird, the markings on its back and wings being exceptionally fine. Of Australian quail there are at least a dozen varieties, ranging from a small partridge down to the little king quail. In some parts of the colony, without the slightest efforts being made at game preservation, enormous bags are frequently made.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TIGER-SNAKE.]
Amongst the game of southern forests the wonga-wonga and bronze-wing pigeons are two really splendid birds, the latter as large as an ordinary blue-rock, and the former making all varieties of the pigeon tribe look like mere dwarfs beside them. They keep closely to the thickets. It requires a quick eye to detect them.
Snakes are often considered a drawback in Australia, but then it must be remembered that a man may live ten years in a snaky part of the country and never see one of these reptiles. Now that rational ideas of treatment are gaining ground, death from snake-bites will not average above one per million of the population per annum.
The most vicious as well as the most dangerous of these reptiles is the tiger-snake, so called from its tawny, cross-banded colouring. Like its near ally, the cobra di capello of India, when irritated it flattens and extends its neck to twice its natural size. A full-sized tiger-snake in the summer season, when it secretes its maximum amount of poison, can inject a dose that is speedily fatal.
The treatment in snake-bite cases is still in dispute. The Indian doctors reject ammonia, and are followed by the Central Board of Health (Victoria), which has issued notices recommending excision and the use of the ligature. Spirits are given in abundance by some medical men.
Walking the sufferer about to avert sleep and coma is a popular procedure. It is the general use of the excision treatment, however, that has reduced the death-rate so wonderfully. If a schoolboy is bitten now he pulls out his knife and excises the bitten part, or he sacrifices the joint of a finger. Keep the poison out of the system, and no harm is possible, and the bitten person now directs his energies to carry out that, instead of wasting his time in running after a doctor, who cannot repair the neglect.
One sport there is in Australia which can be most heartily enjoyed by all. This is shark-catching. The shark is a worse terror than the snake.
Every harbour contains some monsters fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen feet long, and every year there is some tale of horror. The catching of one of these creatures is a popular event, men rejoicing over the destruction of a dreaded enemy.
To the angler Australian waters offer great attractions. Trout were long ago established in the streams of Tasmania and New Zealand, and within the last few years they have become very plentiful in Victorian rivers.
Within twenty miles of Melbourne good trout-fishing may now be had. The fish are slightly more sluggish than in British waters--a fact no doubt accounted for by the warmer climate; and experts say that at table something is lost in flavour also. The Californian salmon have also been acclimatised with fair success. There are several varieties of perch in the colonies; but those of the Gippsland rivers, discarding the traditions of their kind all the world over, rise eagerly to the fly, and give splendid sport. To kill fifty a day with the fly, many of them going up to five pounds, is not an uncommon feat. The bream in all the southern rivers and lakes are strong, l.u.s.ty fellows, that make the reels whistle in a style that is sweetest music to the angler"s ear; but if one wants a bag, he must use double-gutted hooks. Gamer or better fish than these bream no fisherman could desire. The triton of Australian sweet-water streams is the Murray cod; but he has nothing but his size to recommend him. Along the coast and in the tidal rivers the so-called sea-salmon is another source of gratification to the fly-fisher, for he rises freely, and the largest ones make quite a gallant rush when struck. In the lagoons bordering on the chief of Australian rivers, there are large Murray perch that at certain times bite voraciously. But the handsomest of his kind in Australia is undoubtedly the golden perch, found in the Murray and its tributaries. Its scales have the beautiful burnished gleam of old gold, and when a big one is brought to bank it is something to admire. Judged from the standard of the epicure alone, the black-fish is perhaps the finest of all Australian fresh-water fish, its flesh being snow-white, and of a remarkably fine flavour. The fish is found to greatest perfection in the clear mountain streams that come tumbling down from the Otway ranges, in the southern part of Victoria; but he is of sluggish habits, and by no means the angler"s ideal. When these streams are discoloured by storm water very good fishing may be had through the day; but if the water is clear the black-fish comes from his hiding-place only when the shadows from the hill-tops begin to deepen over the water.
In some few rivers widening into the sea whiting are caught at certain periods of the year. The best sea-fishing is perhaps that to be had with the schnapper in Port Phillip Bay, where the fish are plentiful about the lines of reef, and range in weight up to forty pounds.
Notwithstanding the merits of some of the native fish, the traditional love for trout has risen superior to every other inclination with the anglers of Victoria and Tasmania. The trout in many places have worked themselves so far up the streams that man can only follow with the greatest difficulty, and the scrub is so thick that an angler would find it hopeless to attempt a cast. With these natural preserves extending for miles, the supply of trout in colonial rivers is inexhaustible. In fly-fishing for trout in the colonies it has been found, however, that the most sacredly observed rules of British angling are entirely useless. Flies that were deadly in the old country are impotent here; and, as far as the Australian is concerned, all the main tenets of the fly-fisher"s faith must be absolutely cast aside, and a new angling creed built upon the basis of colonial insect life and the changed habits of the trout as we know them in Australia.
Australian vegetation is sometimes considered monotonous in appearance.
But this is the criticism of the stranger, and not of the resident. The first idea of the observer is one of uniformity. When the Chinese originally came to Australia, no one could see any difference between the units of the Mongolian horde. Often did robbers of fowl-houses escape punishment from the inability of the prosecutor to identify the men he had chased and lost sight of, and frequently, it is to be feared, was the wrong wearer of the pigtail stoutly sworn to. The yellow skin, the round face and the flat nose conveyed the idea of ident.i.ty. And to Chinamen all Europeans were alike. The puzzled Celestial could not distinguish between Englishman and German, and still less between individual beef-eaters.
But Australian vegetation has distinctive features that quickly catch the eye. The eucalypt is always the eucalypt, with its sombre green and its peculiar adjustment of foliage. The leaves do not spread out horizontally, but depend vertically from the boughs, an arrangement which minimises the shade afforded in the daytime, but gives beautiful effects in the gloaming, when the tree, not obscuring the light, becomes a network of elegant tracery. Viewed in the daytime in juxtaposition to oak or elm, and the confession must be made that the average gum of the plains is scraggy; but in the moonlight the oak or elm will be a black blotch, when the eucalypt is transformed into a wonder of light and shade and of graceful outlines. An acquaintance with the bush soon dispels the notion of monotony. The eucalypts are found to differ one from another; the handsome Banksias, the curious Casuarinas, or shea-oaks, the graceful acacias, all claim attention and individualise the scene, while palms, gra.s.s-trees and tree-ferns add charm and character to many a landscape.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AUSTRALIAN TREES.]
In vegetation as in other matters Australia delights in the vast, sometimes in the _outre_, often in the contrast of extremes. Dwarf scrub will cover whole regions. One tract of the mallee scrub, shared between Victoria and South Australia, covers an area of nearly 9000 square miles. The mallee is just high enough to render it impossible for a man on horseback to look over it. And on the mountain ranges in the same colony are to be found long stretches and avenues of the "giant gums,"
whose pure white silvery columns seem as though intended to support the sky. Between these two extremes is to be found a pleasantly-wooded country presenting a park-like appearance. Farther afield are the interior plains, covered often with the terrible spinifex, or porcupine gra.s.s, a hard, coa.r.s.e and spiny gra.s.s, uneatable by horse or a.s.s, or, I believe, by camel, and apt to wound the feet of the unfortunate animal that journeys over it.
Different indeed from these treeless, waterless steppes are the valleys and mountains of the seaboard. In these regions, protected from hot winds and favoured by a heavy rainfall, we have a luxuriant and elegant vegetation. Beginning with the gullies of the Dandenong ranges, near Melbourne, the traveller can proceed from fairy scene to fairy scene along the coast to far-away Carpentaria and Papua, the vegetation preserving its ident.i.ty, and yet slowly changing from a sub-tropical to a tropical character. In the Victorian region there are rivulets of clear water hidden from sight by the tree-ferns which flourish on their banks. Journeying northwards, the vegetation thickens. Parasitical ferns--the staghorns of the conservatory--depend from every branch.
Palm-trees make their appearance, the n.o.ble _Livistonia_ attaining in suitable places a height of eighty feet. The musk-tree and the _Pittosporum_ scent the air, and lovely twining plants help to form an impenetrable foliage. On reaching the ranges of New South Wales, the luxuriance is found to have further developed. From some hill-top you gaze upon a verdant lawn gay with flowers and studded with shrubs.
Descending, you find that the surface is a vegetable canopy formed by stout and hardy creepers and climbers that spread from tree to tree, only the tops of the lofty eucalypts appearing above this mid-air canopy. Lower down, fern-trees and cabbage-palms form a second roof, while the soil supports an undergrowth of mosses, lichens and ferns.
But the gum-tree is as distinctive of Australia as are the emu and the kangaroo. It pleases Australians greatly that their country contains the "tallest tree in the world." For years it was believed that Nature had done her utmost in the big trees of California, but experts and visitors admit that this belief must be abandoned. The two countries have the issue to themselves; but the _Sequoia gigantea_ has had to retire in favour of the _Eucalyptus amygdalina_, or giant gum. The following list of generally accepted heights will show how completely the indigenous vegetation of other lands is put out of court:--
The elm 60 feet to 80 feet.
The oak 60 feet to 100 feet.
_Pinus insignis_ 60 feet to 100 feet.
Himalayan cedar 200 feet.
_Sequoia gigantea_, or "big tree" of California 200 feet to 325 feet.
_Eucalyptus amygdalina_, or giant gum 250 feet to 480 feet.
The giant gum is rich in a peculiar volatile oil, and it supplies a splendid timber for shingles, palings, &c. Hence, in all accessible parts, the fine specimens are doomed to early destruction by the splitter. The woodman does not spare the tree. The more huge the round, straight, polished, and beautiful stem, the more likely he is to mark it as his own. Confident statements have been made that in favoured spots the giant gum attains the height of 500 feet; just as equally confident a.s.sertions have been published that the _Sequoia_ of California runs up to 450 feet. The highest gum of which there is authentic record is growing on Mount Baw-Baw, Gippsland. Mr. Clement Hodgkinson, C.E., gives the official measurement as 471 feet. The highest tree now standing in California is 325 feet, so that the eucalypt is the taller by 146 feet.
If two tall elms, 70 feet high, were placed on the top of the tallest _Sequoia_ in existence, the Mount Baw-Baw eucalypt would still overlook the three.
The Fernshaw or Black Spur timber is famous because it is easily reached from Melbourne, but the trees themselves are not the head of their clan.
A gum felled in the Otway ranges, at the instance of the late Professor Wilson, measured 378 feet to the spot where its top had been broken off, and, allowing for the average taper, 40 feet had been carried away. A gum felled at Dandenong, and measured by Mr. D. Boyle, measured 420 feet. And the quant.i.ty of the timber supported by the soil where these large trees are found is very remarkable. The secretary of the State Forest Board noted the growth on one acre of ground in the Upper Yarra district, and he found that the plot contained twenty eucalypts of a height of 350 feet, and thirty-eight saplings of a height of 50 feet, these trees emerging from a dense undergrowth of fern and musk trees.
In his _Goldfields of Victoria_ Mr. Brough Smith photographs a tree 69 feet in circ.u.mference, and 330 feet in height, and of greater proportions therefore than the greatest of the _Sequoias_. This tree, with hundreds of others, was felled for splitting purposes. The Australian giants abound, and new discoveries are constantly made; and it is quite possible that in some one of the valleys yet to be broken into by man the real giant of the globe will be discovered. The picture on page 16 of the Gippsland railway running through a cleared track gives some idea of a primaeval forest in Victoria.
Mention has been made of the silver columns of the giant gum. The tree sheds its bark annually, and the new skin is of a pure and dazzling whiteness. As the stem is perfectly cylindrical, and as the huge fabric towers 200 and 250 feet high without a branch, the sight of a group of these monarchs is at these times especially beautiful. Below are the tree-ferns and a lovely bush undisturbed by the wind, which may be heard rustling the far-off tops of the grove. The elegant lyre-birds will be drinking at a spring. Parrots of gorgeous plumage flit by. Few can gaze upon such a scene without emotion, without realising with silent awe that this fair spot is Nature"s temple. And then the oppressed heart, acknowledging the charm, will turn from all that Nature gives to what she must bring.
Of the other gums the pride of place must be awarded to the n.o.ble _Eucalpytus rostrata_, or red gum of the colonists. Fine specimens are still to be found near Melbourne, though the value of its wood has marked them out for destruction in the neighbourhood of towns and cities. The _Rostrata_ has an enormous spreading upper growth. Some of the limbs rival in size the parent stem, and will be gnarled and contorted in a manner recalling the writhings of the Laoc.o.o.n. It should be studied from a distance, for their enormous weight sometimes causes the branches to snap suddenly without the slightest warning, to the ruin of all below.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SILVER-STEM EUCALYPTS.]
The rival of the red gum as a timber tree is the jarrah, an eucalypt peculiar to Western Australia, where it grows in forests. Seen in its home on the Darling range, or the hills of Geographe Bay, the jarrah is a magnificent tree, running up to a hundred feet before it branches, and reminding the spectator sometimes of the rostrata, and sometimes of the giant gum. The specialty of the jarrah is its power to defy the ravages of the insect world and of the sea. This is complete. An examination recently made of a pier at Banjoew.a.n.gie, which was constructed thirty years ago of jarrah, showed that the piles were as sound as the day they were put in, although the seas of Java swarm with the _Teredo navalis_.
The official examination made by a select committee of Parliament in South Australia, in 1870, of the Port Adelaide bridge, erected in 1858, disclosed the fact that while every other timber employed below water "had been completely destroyed by the teredo and other submarine insects, the jarrah remained unscathed," and had apparently saved the work from collapse. In point of beauty many award the palm amongst the gums to the _Eucalyptus ficifolia_, or scarlet flowering gum. It is met with in groups. The tufts of bright scarlet blossom contrast well with the dark-green foliage, and the tree adds greatly to the attraction of the West Australian bush.
The mallee (_Eucalyptus dumosa_) is one of the strangest products of a strange country. The root is a globular ma.s.s, varying in size from a child"s head to a huge ma.s.s which a man can hardly carry. From this bulb a tap root descends to a great depth to reach moist ground below, while other roots spread more horizontally. Above ground a few saplings shoot out to a maximum height of about twenty feet, each sapling having a tuft of leaves at its top. The appearance is that of a skeleton umbrella, with the central stick or handle removed. No surface water is to be obtained in the mallee district; its silence is only disturbed by the melancholy wail of the dingo. Miserable is the fate of the luckless wretch who wanders into such tracts as these. Unable to discern his way, or to gain any point of vantage, and suffering from thirst, the man"s reason often succ.u.mbs, and he perishes a maniac. Yet the Victorian mallee district is now being cleared by energetic colonists, who aver that when they have exterminated the rabbit, and poisoned the dingo, and got rid of the scrub--which succ.u.mbs to treatment--these plains will prove the most fertile in Australia.
Here allusion may be made to the question whether or not the eucalyptus is a fever-destroying tree. The subject has been thoroughly investigated and discussed by Mr. Joseph Bosisto, M.P., Commissioner for Victoria at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886, and his decision is in favour of the utility of the eucalypt. Mr. Bosisto dwells specially upon the fact that malarious diseases are not native to Australia, and that imported fevers are believed to diminish in virulence; and he directly connects the absence of malarious disease with the presence of a peculiar aroma-diffusing vegetation. Mr. Bosisto mentions the powerful root action of the eucalyptus, which, being an evergreen, is continually at work, absorbing humidity from the earth, and upon its large leaf exudation of oil and acid. His contention is that the volatile oil thrown off by the eucalyptus absorbs atmospheric oxygen, and transforms it into ozone. This much is certain: that if a small quant.i.ty of any of the eucalyptus oils be sprinkled in a sick room, the pleasure of breathing an improved air is realised at once. And as Mr. Bosisto contends that he has established the diffusion of volatile oil by the eucalyptus, and the chemical consequences of such diffusion, he submits with a calm confidence that "there is an active agency in Australian vegetation unknown in other countries," and that the eucalyptus is rightly described as an anti-fever tree.
The tree most favoured for this purpose is the blue gum, or _Eucalyptus globus_. The blue gum is extensively cultivated outside of Australia, because experiment shows that it produces the most timber in the least time. The rapidity with which the Australian forest recovers itself after apparent destruction is indeed one of its marvels. In conversation a landed proprietor of Benambra mentioned how, twenty-five years back, there were places in his district in which scarce a stick could be seen--then diggers had cut down every tree for firewood and for their workings. But the diggers have gone, and now there is again the original dense forest.
Next to the eucalypt the tree most prized in Australia is the graceful acacia, varieties of which flourish throughout the continent. The tall slender stem of the "wattle"--as the tree is termed--supporting a feathery foliage is everywhere to be met with in the south-eastern colonies. In the spring-time the valleys and their river-courses are lit up with the golden bloom which the tree bears in rare profusion, and the perfume scents the air. In a room the odour of a mere twig of the wattle will often be found to be overpowering. In England the young people can "go a-Maying," and in Australia they have no happier time than when they go "to bring the wattle home." The quotation is the refrain of a song which the sentiment made popular. Not only is the wattle "a thing of beauty" in itself, but the circ.u.mstance that its bark is one of the most powerful tanning agencies in the world, and has a high commercial value accordingly, renders it to its possessor "a joy for ever." The tree is now being extensively planted in Victoria, where the valuable varieties flourish, not by landscape gardeners, but by shrewd agriculturists intent upon netting 10 per ton from the bark.
A world of other vegetation demands notice. The seaboard has a characteristic shrub of its own in the so-called tea-tree scrub, described by Baron von Mueller as a "myrtle-like _Leptospermum_, of tall stature, with half-snowy, half-rosy flowers." It is the best of sand-binders. No tract is so inhospitable but that the tea-tree will flourish there. It fights the ocean to its edge. On some jutting promontory on which not a rush will grow, exposed to every storm and swept by spray, the tea-tree will be found, stunted and deserted, but still battling bravely for existence against sea and breeze.
Inland the shea-oak (_Casuarina striata_) attracts attention. It is scattered over the continent, and once seen is always remembered. The tree is well shaped, but is leafless, long thin thongs taking the place of foliage. The dark and gloomy appearance of the tree impresses itself upon the spectator, and so, if he camps near it at night, does the melancholy moaning of the wind through its pendent whip-like branchlets.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOTTLE-TREE.]
Small s.p.a.ce has been left for a notice of such marvels as the bottle-tree, and such beauties of Australian vegetation as the flame-tree. The Sydney or Queensland visitor in the summer season may see in full bloom, in the Illawarra bush, the local "flame-tree"
(_Sterculia acerifolia_). The tree bears a profusion of scarlet racemes of flowers, and of large bright green leaves. The foliage sheds itself to make room for the profuse inflorescence, so that the tree has veritably the appearance of a fire. Cycads and palm-lilies are picturesque wherever they are met with.
The gra.s.s-trees (_Xanthorrhoea_) are peculiar to Australia, and in some places cover myriads of acres. I have seen them in valleys in Western Australia growing so thickly that it was impossible to push a horse through their ranks. A rugged resinous stem five to ten feet high supports a drooping plume of wiry foliage, from which a flowering bulrush springs. The "black boy," as the gra.s.s-tree is called in the west, is often weird, and is essentially Australian. Useful advice to a settler would be, "Be chary of buying land where the gra.s.s-tree grows,"
for, though there are exceptions, the _Xanthorrhoea_ has a weakness for the desert. The warratah, with its single stem of six feet, bearing a crimson blossom resembling a full-blown peony, is one of the most popular of the wild flowers of New South Wales. The boronia, with its powerful perfume, will be admired by the visitor; the _Araucarias_ have here their home. The heaths are beautiful; and it may be said of them in their place and season, "You scarce can see the gra.s.s for flowers." For a long time the wild flowers of the country were neglected, but now in some places shows are exclusively devoted to them. The dictum of Mr. A.
A. Wallace is not to be lightly challenged, and it is that "no country in the world affords a greater variety of lovely flowers than Australia, nor more interesting forms of vegetable life."