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Title: The wilderness
Author: Amy Eleanor Mack
Release date: October 14, 2025 [eBook #77055]
Language: English
Original publication: Sydney: Angus & Robertson Ltd, 1922
Credits: Tom Trussel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WILDERNESS ***
THE WILDERNESS
BY
AMY ELEANOR MACK
(Mrs. LAUNCELOT HARRISON)
AUTHOR OF “A BUSH CALENDAR,” “BUSHLAND
STORIES,” “SCRIBBLING SUE,” ETC.
_Illustrated by John D. Moore_
AUSTRALIA:
ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD.
89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY
_“The Wilderness” first appeared in the
Sydney Morning Herald_
Wholly set up and printed in Australia by
W. C. Penfold & Co., Ltd., 88 Pitt Street, Sydney.
Registered by the Postmaster-General for transmission
through the post as a book.
1922
TO
SUSIE
WHO LOVES ALL LIVING THINGS
[Illustration: “_A soft mauve mist_”--_White Cedar_]
_THE WILDERNESS_
Once, long ago, part of it was garden, and the clearing between the
redgums and ironbarks was planted with fruit trees and roses; but the
gardener went the way of all flesh, and those who came after him did
not have the same love for the garden. Now the bush has reclaimed its
own, and roses and fruit trees are half hidden by the tangle of wild
things which have gradually crept over them. Each spring the fruit
blossoms still shine out on the unpruned trees--all the lovelier for
their disorder--and mingle with the gold of the wattles; myriads
of undisturbed bulbs--ixias, freesias and sparaxis--send up their
blooms among the long swordgrass, outrivalling the blooms in my own
well-worked garden beds.
Lovely as the bush-girt garden must have been in its orderly days,
it now holds joys undreamed of then. With the creeping return of the
wattles and tecoma, the mistletoe and hardenbergia, have come back
many of the shy living creatures which had been driven away by the
gardening; and now that there is no more digging and planting to
disturb them they live as happily as if they were a hundred miles away
from men and houses, instead of in the midst of a popular suburb.
Fortunately the wilderness is not a desirable building allotment. The
little creek which bisects it makes the site too damp for a house,
and so no ruthless builder casts a speculative eye upon it. But the
creek is an attraction for numberless creatures--birds, butterflies,
bandicoots, frogs, and myriads of those tiny living things which we
carelessly group together as “wogs.”
To the entomologist the wilderness would be a perfect paradise, for it
is the breeding place of many things--not all loved by the ordinary
mortal. Many species of ants have their homes down there; and paper
wasps love to make their wonderful many-celled nests on the old fruit
trees. Cicads crawl out of the soil each spring and creep up the gum
trunks to shed their husks before they wing out to fill the wilderness
with their humming song.
[Illustration: _The Paper Wasp’s many-celled nest_]
Trapdoor spiders lurk down near the creek, and many of the web-making
ones spin their light gossamer from branch to branch. Antlions
have their little pits to trap the unwary, and dragonflies flitter
restlessly over the water.
[Illustration: _The Dragonfly_]
Most interesting of all to the non-entomological mind are the
butterflies. Down in that tangle of trees, grass and ferns are to be
found the larvæ and pupæ of many butterflies which in time develop
into living jewels. On dull days, and in late afternoons, the funny
little caterpillars of the small blue butterflies march out in a solemn
procession to feed on the thick fleshy leaves of the mistletoe which
grows so lavishly throughout the wilderness. Later they wander down
from the mistletoe clumps and enter the nests of the stodgy brown
sugar-ants to pupate. It is strange to think that these gay, blue
creatures rise from among such queer bed-fellows to flutter round my
garden flowers. For in time all the full-fledged butterflies leave
the denseness of the wilderness to hover over my beds of zinnias and
larkspurs, outshining the brightest blossoms. Most gorgeous, I think,
are the vivid turquoise blue and black ones called Papilio, which
attract me by their name as much as by their beauty. Very lovely, also,
are the big brown butterflies with the eyes on their wings, while
there is a distinct fascination about the little “skippers” which vary
in shade from cream to brown, and which are known by their different
flight.
[Illustration: _The vivid turquoise blue and black Papilio_]
The man who made the wilderness garden must have had a true Australian
love, for even in the cultivated beds he planted native things. Along
the upper fence he put a row of silver wattles; most of them are long
since dead, and their bare branches serve as supports for the wandering
tecoma and the red-berried solanum. But their children are scattered
throughout the wilderness, making a silver-grey mist, which in spring
gives way to a golden blaze. They are in every stage of growth, and as
the older trees die off there are always new ones coming to perfection.
Pittosporums, too, he planted, which fill the mild spring evenings
with their heavy sweetness; and many Christmas-bushes. These enjoy the
wealth of food which comes from all the leaf-mould and decay, and at
Christmas time each year their rosy branches glow like beacons through
the green glade.
[Illustration: _The formal cypress shape of the Native Cherry_]
Close by the creek grows one of the loveliest of the wild trees, the
native cherry (_Exocarpus cupressiformis_). There is quite an old-world
charm in its formal cypress shape, which seems to reprove the irregular
gums and she-oaks; and the gold-green of its tender tips stands out in
lovely contrast against the blue-green and silver-grey of the other
trees. When the setting sun catches it through the taller tree trunks
it glows like a fairy Christmas tree, and one can picture the little
folk dancing round it in a ring. It grows at the very edge of the once
cultivated plot, and I think the planner of that garden must have
stopped short just there in order to save the lovely thing. Beyond all
this is natural bush, with tall spotted pink orchids pushing through in
the spring-time, under the golden pultenea and dillwynia, and in summer
a white cloud of snowbush.
There is a peculiar fascination in the mixing of wild and tame in that
wilderness. The white shasta daisies growing higher than my head in
their effort to see the sun through the too protective red-shooted
gums; the orange-flowered mistletoe drooping from the tall ironbark to
touch the appletree below, seem to me symbolical of that mixing which
should come so naturally between things--and people--of this land and
of the old.
[Illustration: _The orange-flowered Mistletoe_]
Of all the trees in the wilderness there is none which so completely
satisfies me as the white cedar (_Melia composita_). It grows on the
upper edge, close to my verandah, and I know it through every varying
phase. I never can decide in which season I love it most. It is one of
our few deciduous trees, and after its pale golden leaves have dropped
it is bare for a short space. Then a soft mauve mist breaks over it,
and it is covered with a myriad lilac-coloured, lilac-scented blossoms,
which pour their perfume lavishly into the world. I think it is a much
lovelier tree than the lilac, for, while its colour is not so deep,
the flowers grow in much lighter, more feathery fashion, and the whole
effect is that of a mass of misty lace. While the blossoms are at their
sweetest the little green leaf-tips have been bursting through. They
grow swiftly from slender fingers to waving tassels, and then to open
fans, and by the time the flowers are finished the tree is dressed in
a beautiful fern-like foliage of glossy green. Nor do its charms end
here. The flowers have left behind them hundreds of small green fruits,
which grow and ripen, and by the time the autumn comes again and the
leaves begin to fall they are ready to provide a beautiful feast for
the birds. And so comes the white cedar’s crowning charm.
A tree without birds in its branches is like a room without books on
its shelves--the birds are the crowning charm. The poet knew that when
he wrote ecstatically of--
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair.
My white cedar does not wear any nest in her hair, but each autumn her
charm is enhanced by the beautiful green oriole in her branches.
In autumn the fat green berries have grown golden and juicy, and the
oriole comes to feast upon them. He really has no right to be so near
Sydney nowadays, for he is one of the larger birds, which have been
driven back by the advance of the city; but somehow or other, in the
mysterious bird way, he learned of my white cedar, and each year
he comes to spend a month or so in the wilderness, feasting on the
berries, and in between meals filling the autumn day with his lovely,
clear ringing song. He is one of the lucky birds, whose voice matches
his form in beauty. For he is, indeed, a beautiful bird, with his olive
green back, creamy breast streaked with black, and bright red eye and
bill. He is big enough, too, to show up in the landscape, and towards
the end of his stay, when the cedar is nearly leafless, he makes a
lovely note of colour on the bare branches against the blue sky.
[Illustration: _The beautiful green Oriole_]
But he has rivals in the wilderness--many rivals, both in voice and
appearance. I am not sure that the blue jays are not more lovely to
look at. Their silvery bodies and black faces are not so gay, of
course, but they are slim and slender, and they float through the
tree-tops with wonderful grace. They come in flocks to the wilderness
during the winter, and it is a joy to watch them swaying in the
tree-tops, then darting suddenly down to catch an insect on the wing,
and up again to their swinging perch. Pity ’tis their voice has no
beauty, but is just a querulous squawking note.
Handsome creatures, too, are the dollar-birds which visit the
wilderness every year and drift amongst the tall tree-tops, displaying
the silvery dollars on their wings against a blue-and-brown background.
But their voices!--a small boy compared them to a lot of mad frogs,
and the description is not inapt. Fortunately for our ears these
harsh-voiced birds are short-stayed visitors, but many of the birds
that linger in the wilderness are true singers.
As I write the air is filled with the glorious song of the
butcher-birds, which stay with us all through the late summer and
autumn and sometimes come in the spring. I have heard all the old-world
songbirds--the nightingale and the lark, the blackbird and the
thrush--heard and loved them all. But for sheer beauty and volume I
know no bird whose voice compares with the butcher-bird’s, and I think
it is a sin that he should be so named.
It is not his habit of making an occasional meal from a small bird
that has given the butcher-bird his name, for many birds have the
same habit. It is his peculiar custom of storing his food that has
gained him the reputation of keeping a “butcher’s shop.” Most birds
kill an insect as they need it and either eat it or carry it off to
their nestlings. The butcher-bird thriftily makes a small collection
of insects and lays them in a row. I have seen him lay a huge brown
grasshopper and a slim praying mantis side by side on my garden rail,
and then fly off and hang another grasshopper in a slender fork of a
wattle.
Gould, in his famous work, pictures the butcher-bird with a blue wren
hanging from a fork in the tree beside him, a picture which naturally
ruined the bird’s reputation. I am happy to say I have never seen that
horrid tragedy, and from personal observation I think that insects are
a much more usual part of his diet than are little birds. At any rate,
with such a beautiful voice he deserves the benefit of the doubt. I
hope it is not characteristic of us that in naming him we should have
overlooked his rare beauty and pounced on his little weakness, though I
cannot help thinking that in more aesthetic lands he would have had a
name more suited to his beautiful song.
[Illustration: _Our best autumn singer--the Butcher-bird_]
The butcher-bird--since I must call him so--is our best autumn singer,
but in the spring his place is taken by the grey thrush. He is next, I
think, on the list of our songbirds, and his sweet ringing call holds
all the freshness and joy of spring. He is such a darling bird to
have about the place. He perches on the redgum or the wattles, which
stand in line with the white cedar, and he looks down at me with his
big round eye in the friendliest fashion. So graceful he is, too, and
so elegant in his neat grey coat, that I always place him in my mind
amongst the beautiful birds, though some might call him plain.
Whilst you might dispute the grey thrush’s claim to beauty, no one
can deny that of two other of my songbirds, the two thickheads, or
thunderbirds, as they are sometimes called, because they burst into
song after a clap of thunder or any sudden noise. The yellow-breasted
one is very gorgeous, with his white throat and black face; but the
rufous-breasted one is handsome, too. Sometimes he breaks into a
whip-like note, which has earned him the name of “ring-coachie” amongst
small boys. Once, on a rare occasion, the coachwhip bird himself sent
his call up from the little creek. As every one knows, the coachwhip
bird is a shy, furtive creature, rarely seen by anyone but real bird
observers, though his voice is common enough in the gullies. We
are nearly a mile away from the gully where he lives, and he must
have crept up through the intervening gardens to have a look at the
wilderness. Just once he came, but though I have looked and listened I
have had no sign or sound of him since.
A very familiar birdcall in the wilderness is that of the cuckoo--or I
should say “calls of the cuckoos,” for there are five different sorts,
with five different calls, amongst our regular visitors. Of course,
none of them says “cuckoo.” Once I used to cherish a secret feeling
of resentment that we should have so many true cuckoos in Australia
without one possessing the call associated with the name. But after
four English Mays, in which the cuckoo calls all day, I thanked fate
that I lived in a land where the cuckoo did not say “cuckoo” from dawn
till long after dark. For a more monotonous birdcall I have never
known. Our big scrub-cuckoo, the Koel, is nearest to it in monotony;
but the five that visit the wilderness have quite different songs.
True, the fantail and the two little bronze cuckoos have merely
plaintive Whistles, but the big pallid cuckoo has a fine ringing
song right up the scale, and the square-tailed calls over and over a
distinct phrase, in a higher key each time.
[Illustration: _A simple creature_]
The shrike-tit, that gorgeous yellow-and-black fellow with the black
crest, is one of the loveliest birds amongst our regular visitors,
and one of my favourites, for he has such an unsuspicious nature. His
long drawn out, rather plaintive note is very easy to imitate, and we
can always bring him down to us by repeating the call. Again and again
I have seen the simple creature hurrying through the wilderness in
response to a human whistle, and flying wonderingly from tree to tree
in search of his calling rival. Sometimes he comes within a few feet of
us, dancing with rage and chattering angrily at the hidden intruder,
before he discovers the fraud and flies off in disgust.
[Illustration: _The attractive Lalage_]
A visitor which has a particular attraction for me is the Lalage. I
like his smart coat of black and white and grey, and I like his sweet
trilling song, but what I like most is his name--his scientific name.
For he is one of the few birds whose scientific name is preferable to
the vernacular or the colloquial; _Lalage tricolor_ is far prettier and
easier to say than “White-shouldered caterpillar-eater,” or the stupid
“peewee lark.” Other birds that visit us occasionally are parrots.
I have noticed five kinds--Rosellas, Mountain Lowrie, Blue Mountain
parrots, and two little green lorikeets. They have always come when the
eucalypts are in flower, and I love to see their gay bodies flashing
against the creamy blossoms as they feed noisily on the honey. If only
people would realize how much life and colour they bring to their
gardens by retaining food-giving trees, I am sure they would not be so
ruthless about cutting down trees to make way for roses and dahlias.
No bed of flowers could be so soul-satisfying as the sight of a flock
of parrakeets feeding in the honey-laden blossoms of a flower-covered
bloodwood.
Just as gay as the parrots, though very, very much smaller, is the
red-headed honey-eater, or bloodbird, as he is more familiarly known.
He is also a honey lover, and visits us when the trees are in blossom.
His bright red-and-black coat makes a vivid spot of colour, and his
pretty little song adds to the general harmony.
The profusion of mistletoe in the wilderness brings us the
mistletoe-bird. Few people really know this tiny steel-blue
crimson-breasted fellow, or his plain grey little wife. Yet his single
whistle, like that of a small boy who has just learned to whistle
through his teeth, is one of the commonest sounds in the bush, and the
mated birds call continuously when feeding in different clumps, as if
they feared to lose touch with one another. One of the great charms
of a wattle, which till lately stood beside my verandah, was that its
leafy tops were beloved by the mistletoe-bird. When he had taken his
fill of the luscious and viscid berries which dropped from the redgum
by the gate, he would retire to the wattle, hide himself amongst the
grey-green foliage, and pour out an ecstasy of song in the tiniest of
voices. Many birds, even to so bold a fellow as the butcher-bird, have
this habit of hiding amongst the thickest leaves and soliloquizing, but
none has a more impassioned utterance than the little mistletoe-bird,
though none has so slender a song.
Sometimes we find their nest, one of the most wonderfully built of all
birds’ nests. It is woven from fine plant fibres and silky seeds, and
is hung from a slender twig, with a little entrance at the side; it is
very like a little purse of felt, save that it is not so harsh to the
touch as felt.
[Illustration: _Spine-billed Honeyeater_]
One more of our visitors I must mention, and that is the native canary,
which comes each year, builds his little domed nest in a sapling, and
fills the air with his sweet song. Then there are the everyday birds,
the dear, familiar things which are with us all the year round. Every
gardener knows them--blue wrens and tits, jacky winters and yellow
robins, redheads and spinebills, peewees and kookaburras--they are the
usual inhabitants of our suburban gardens, and dear to us all because
of their friendly, fearless ways. Other birds come and go, but they
stay with us all the time, building and breeding in the wilderness
each spring. In the two years that I have known this wild patch I have
counted seventy-two species of birds passing through. Some, as I have
said, are there all the time; some come at certain seasons, sing for a
space amongst the tree-tops, feed for a week or so on the berries and
blossoms, then pass on to other feeding grounds, while others stay just
for an hour, glad of a safe and sheltered resting-place on their long,
mysterious journeys to and fro across the land.
[Illustration: _So tame and friendly--Blue Wrens_]
Fascinating as the wilderness is by day, it is at night that one feels
its deepest spell. Then all the strange elusive creatures come out
from their hiding places, and go about their business in the tree-tops
or down under the thick shrubs. One needs keen hearing to know the
wilderness by night, for eyes alone are not much good.
I can never make up my mind which I love most--the birds that live all
the year round in the wilderness, and are so tame and friendly that
they come right up on to my verandah and sit and sing within a yard of
my chair, or the visitors which bring the feeling of distant places
with them, and carry my thoughts far, far away. But of one thing I am
sure, and that is my gratitude to the man who left this little wild
patch in the heart of the houses to be a sanctuary for all wild things.
Noisy people passing by may think it is a mere empty patch of trees;
but we who have sat silently on our verandah through the long still
summer evenings and listened to the whisperings and stirrings, know
that there is a distinct world of living things waking and moving down
there in the shadows.
[Illustration: _Long-nosed Bandicoot_]
First of all there are the bandicoots, two kinds of them, amusingly
named the long-nosed and the fat bandicoot. One stumbles over a few
of their holes by day, but no other sign of them is there; yet at
night out they come by the dozen. We hear them rustling through the
long swordgrass, right up to the garden where occasionally--not
often--they do considerable damage by rooting amongst my bulbs. Their
queer little cough always betrays them, though I must admit they do not
seem at all anxious about hiding their presence. It always gives me a
distinct thrill of pleasure to hear that quaint little note just beside
my verandah, and its wild touch is a happy contrast to the jazz music
thumped out by my neighbour’s pianola. More silent than the bandicoots,
though no more stealthy, are the ring-tailed ’possums, of which there
are quite a number in the wilderness. Last summer one built on the roof
of our verandah, and every evening, as we sat having our coffee in the
dusk, we used to hear his little patter across the flat roof. We could
see him leap forth into a branch of the tall wattle which bent towards
the verandah, then up and across to the taller redgum beyond, and away
down into the heart of the wilderness. Sometimes when the hot summer
nights have driven off sleep I have heard him in the dawn, scrambling
back to bed, just as the birds have been waking up. I must confess that
I felt very proud at having such a rare and distinguished lodger.
[Illustration: _The Big ’Possum_]
Occasionally we see the big ’possum. I am not quite sure where he
lives, though I know two or three likely spots; but now and then he
comes right out into the open, and we both see and hear him. One
moonlight night he was feeding on the cedar berries not ten yards from
the verandah, and even if his clawing and crunching of the berries had
not betrayed him, he was quite visible as he hung on the swaying bough
amongst the fern-like leaves, while every now and then as he moved I
could see his big eyes shining brightly in the moonlight.
[Illustration: _Then there are Owls_]
Then there are owls--three or four sorts of them--which drift in
absolute silence from place to place. On moonlit nights a sudden shadow
floats on the ground before you, and if you look up quickly enough you
will see a white form settling silently on a branch or post. If you
keep very still and watch patiently you may see him dart down to catch
some flying insect, or make a sudden swoop at a mouse in the grass
below. How they see their prey is always one of the wonders of nature
to me, but apparently they never miss. I like the names of my owls--the
delicate owl, the masked owl and the Boobook owl--the last so named
from his familiar double note “Boo-book.”
The old mopoke, who for many years got the credit for the boo-book
owl’s note, lives in the wilderness, too. Like most of the nocturnal
creatures, he likes the tall redgum which stands beside my gate, and
he sits there for an hour at a time constantly uttering his soft
mysterious note, “Oom, oom, oom.” Sometimes he comes closer, on to
the fence, or even on to the verandah post itself. In the daytime he
sits silently for ages in what must be a most uncomfortable position,
pretending to be a branch of the tree, but at night he gives himself
away by his “Oom, oom, oom,” for even the dullest human knows that
trees don’t say “Oom, oom, oom.” Still, he is clever at catching his
food, and the nocturnal insects find him as formidable as the owls.
Whenever we have a few days rain the little creek in the wilderness
fills up, and then the frogs make high holiday. Most people will tell
you that a frog croaks, and leave it at that. But, as a matter of
fact, in proportion to their numbers, there is as great a variety in
frog songs as in birds’. Once you have realized the differences you
will wonder however you were so stupid as to think them all the same.
There is the deep “Craw-craw, craw-craw” of the big green tree-frog,
_Hyla coerulea_; the familiar chant, “Craw-awk, crawk, crok, crok,” of
the golden tree-frog, _Hyla aurea_--I give you their scientific names
because they are so charming--the slow “Kuk-kuk-kuk,” and the high,
piping, hurried “Cree-cree-cree-cree” of two other _Hylas_. Then there
is the insect-like “Crikik, crikik” of the little brown _Crinia_, and
the harsher “creek” of the tiny brown toadlet. The two frogs which
rejoice in the name of _Limnodynastes_, “King of the pool,” have
quite different notes. One has an explosive “Toc, toc, toc,” like a
machine gun, and the other calls “Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk.” Then the funny old
burrowing frog calls softly “Oo-oo-oo-oo,” and sounds more like a bird
than a frog.
On fine mornings after rain, when the croakings overnight have told me
what is afoot, I visit the little creek to see which of the frogs have
spawned. A patch of froth, like soapsuds, with tiny spheres of black
and white embedded in it, is the egg-mass of one or other of the two
species of _Limnodynastes_. Two kinds of eggs are neatly arranged in
cylindrical bunches round the submerged roots and grasses. Each egg is
surrounded by a sphere of clear jelly, and a thin gelatinous matrix
envelopes all the eggs. Those of _Crinia_ are black and white, those of
_Hyla ewingi_ brown and cream. Floating on the surface, as if peppered
over it, are the brown-and-white eggs of _Hyla coerulea_; while hidden
under the debris round the edges of the water I find the much larger
eggs of the little _Pseudophryne_, twenty to a nest, with the gaily
orange-marked mother toadlet in attendance.
[Illustration: _A balloon almost as big as the frog itself_]
All are amusing, as frogs have ever been since the days of Aesop and
Aristophanes; but there is none so amusing as the big green tree-frog,
_Hyla coerulea_. He is the one that makes the great frog concert in
moist places, and many a bad sleeper has cursed him for croaking on
all through the hours of darkness. But once you have seen one of these
frog gatherings you can never feel quite the same about their chorus.
Amusement will temper your irritation. They come from all round the
neighbourhood to the meeting place, and in the dusk you may even trip
over the large green frogs hopping along the footpath on their way
from neighbouring gardens. Often the gathering numbers hundreds, and
they sit about the edge of the pond, in the grass, and on the stones,
chanting loudly. And at each deep note a great balloon swells out in
front of the throat, a balloon almost as big as the frog itself, going
up and down, up and down, as each deep note goes out and the breath
comes back for the next boom. I know of nothing in the whole bush quite
so ludicrous as a frogs’ party, and I must confess that the knowledge
that so few people have attended one adds to its interest. There is
a rare satisfaction in being on intimate terms with the really shy,
strange, wild creatures. If you would share my pleasure all you need
do is to keep a little wild patch of bush near your home. For wherever
there is sanctuary the shy bush things will come and make their homes
beside you.
W. C. Penfold & Co. Ltd., Printers, 88 Pitt Street, Sydney
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