CHAPTER XII.
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE AUSTRALIAN PRAIRIES.
The first naturalists who explored the littoral of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands were struck with astonishment at the sight of the strange and almost monstrous animals they discovered there. Far more certainly than Columbus had they fallen in with a New World; a new world of zoology and botany; a world apart, peopled by beings wholly different from those they had elsewhere studied, and some of which exhibited a complexity and originality of organization and structure wholly antagonistic to the received theories of fundamental characteristics belonging to the various classes of the animal kingdom. The Australian Fauna, in this respect, can only be compared to that of Madagascar, which equally bears an impress peculiarly its own, and presents but a few features of kinship with the Indian Fauna. It is the latter also that the Australian Fauna most closely approaches, or, to speak more correctly, from which it least widely diverges.
The great Herbivora--Pachyderms, Ruminants, and Solidungulates--are absolutely wanting in Australia, as well as the Carnivora properly so called--Apes and Lemuridæ. The class of Mammals is only represented by a small number of Cheiroptera and Rodents; by some Amphibia, Phocæ, and Otidæ (Seals and Bustards), which inhabit the bays carved out of its long line of coast; by the Marsupials and a very limited order of Monotremata. The two latter groups are pre-eminently characteristic of the Australian Fauna; the second belongs exclusively to it. Little, indeed, is wanting to make it identical with the sub-class of the Marsupials, represented only in South America by the genera Opossum didelphis, Hemiurus, and Chironectes, and elsewhere limited to New Holland, Tasmania, New Guinea, New Zealand, and some other less important islands of Oceania.
The Marsupials (from the Greek [Greek: marsypos], a purse) owe their distinctive name to a very curious peculiarity in the organization of the females. The latter bring their young into the world while still very feeble, and of themselves fix them to their breasts, where they remain attached until they have acquired that degree of development which all other mammals possess at their birth. Generally the breasts are covered with a loose skin, forming a sort of pouch or purse, in which the young are concealed, which protects them against climatic changes, and enables the mother conveniently to carry them everywhere about with her. Two particular bones, called the marsupial bones, attached to the pubis, and placed amidst the abdominal muscles, support this pouch. They assist, says Professor Owen, in producing a compression of the mammary gland, necessary for the alimentation of a peculiarly feeble offspring, and they defend the abdominal viscera from the pressure of the young as they increase in size, during their mammary or marsupial existence, and still more when they return to the pouch for temporary shelter.
The marsupials present, moreover, in the different families composing the order, a great diversity of organization. Most of them are herbivorous or frugivorous; but there are some which prefer animal nourishment, and which, in their habits as well as in the structure of their jaws and their digestive apparatus, closely approach the carnivora.
The order of which I am speaking includes some animals of great size. Such is the Great Kangaroo (_Macropus giganteus_), which generally measures about seven and a half feet in length from the nose to the tip of the tail, the tail being rather more than three feet in length, and fully twelve inches in circumference at the base. In its erect sitting posture, when it rests on its hind-legs and the root of its tail as on a tripod, its height amounts to about fifty inches; but when it rises on its toes to look around, its stature exceeds that of a man. The great length of its hind-legs is a notable peculiarity; their feet are provided with only four toes, the central being very long, of great strength, and terminated in a large and powerful hoof-like nail or claw. The fore-legs, on the contrary, are very short, and the feet divided into five toes, each furnished with a short and somewhat hooked claw. The animal's head is small, with rather pointed ears, and large but placid eyes; it has a thin and gracefully proportioned neck; so that a startling discrepancy is observable between the fore and the posterior parts of the animal, though the general effect is neither ungraceful nor unpleasing. It should be noticed that the kangaroo never folds his tail between his legs, which, I may add, are extraordinarily strong. The thighs are thick, the tarsi long and robust. He only walks on all fours when hotly pressed, and then his appearance is decidedly ungainly. In escaping from an enemy he rears himself upright, skims the plain with bounding leaps, and in a few minutes leaves behind him the swiftest horse or dog. But if all avenues of retreat be closed to him, he plants himself firmly against a tree or a rock and fights with obstinate courage, ripping up his assailants with his potent hind-feet, like a stag with his horns or a wild boar with his tusks.
The diet of the kangaroo is essentially "vegetarian;" he lives upon leaves, herbs, and roots, and employs his fore-paws, like the Rodents, to carry his food to his mouth. The animal's habits are mild and inoffensive. They roamed very peacefully about the Australian prairies before the new continent was opened up to European enterprise; having no other enemies to fear than the natives, who were scattered in small tribes over a few points of an immense territory. Their chase is now one of the favourite amusements of the colonists, who destroy them in great numbers. They are easily domesticated, and may be regarded as already acclimatized in Europe, where, it is hoped, they may prove of great utility. The flesh of the tame Kangaroo is very good, but that of the wild animal is still better. Their skin, covered with a thick hair of an uniformly gray colour, may be adapted to various purposes.
The genus comprehends several species of very different dimensions: as, the Great Kangaroo, already mentioned; the Woolly or Red Kangaroo (_M. laniger_), which rather exceeds it in size; and the Potoroo, which is larger than a rat.
I must cite, besides the Kangaroos, as the most remarkable types of the Australian Marsupials, the Phascolomys, the Phascolarctos, the Phalangas, and the Thylacynas.
The Phascolomys, like the kangaroo, has been introduced into Europe, where he seems to be perfectly acclimatized, and specimens may be seen both in the London Zoological Gardens and the Jardin Zoologique of Paris. He is better known by his native name of the Wombat (_Phascolomys Wombat_), and was first discovered by Bass, the gallant explorer and surgeon, whose name is indissolubly connected with the bright deeds of Australian discovery. The large-browed wombat might, at first sight, be mistaken for a small bear. His loins are thick, his limbs short, his hair coarse--thickly set on the loins, back, and head, thinly scattered about the belly--and of a light, shining sandy-brown. It is difficult to say why he is surnamed _latifrons_, for his forehead is no larger than that of other animals of his family; and, at all events, he exhibits, by way of compensation, an extraordinary extent of surface in the hinder parts, which, as they are utterly deficient in tail, present a very grotesque appearance. He burrows like the badger, and on the Australian continent never quits his retreat until night sets in. He lives on herbs and roots. The natives roast his flesh, and esteem it a viand of no ordinary excellence.
The Phascolarctos, or Koala (_Phascolarctos cinereus_), is closely allied to the wombat. He is strongly but clumsily made, with robust limbs and powerful claws, which he employs in clinging to the branches of the trees where he chiefly makes his home. However, he frequently visits _terra firma_, and burrows with great ease; concealing himself in a torpid state in his subterranean retreat during the cold season. His fore-feet have each five toes, of which two are opposed to the other three--a circumstance noted in no other mammal. He has no tail, like the wombat. His coat is a bluish-gray fur, very thick and extremely soft, darkest on the back, and very pale under the throat and belly. An elongated nose looks as if it were tipped with black leather. The eyes are round and dark; the ears almost hidden in the plenitude of fur. By day he is a drowsy and, sooth to say, a stupid animal; but at night he wakes up into a more active state. He feeds upon the fresh young tops of trees, selecting their blossoms and young shoots; and though in appearance resembling the Phalanga, in habits seems closely allied to the Sloth.
The _Phalangas_ form the typical genus of the tribe of Phalangistins, which comprehends, in addition, the genera _Trichosura_, _Pseudochira_, and _Dromicia_. Several species are met with in Malaysia, but they chiefly belong to the Australian Fauna. They live chiefly in trees, feeding on various kinds of small animals, insects, eggs, and fruits, which they grasp between their fore-paws, and so bring to their mouth. Their appearance may be imagined by putting together a rather short head with short ears and short woolly fur; a squirrel-like body and long prehensile tail, sometimes completely covered with hair: the body measures about twenty-six inches, and the tail about fifteen inches. The two principal species are the Sooty Phalanga (_Phalangista fuliginosa_), found in Van Diemen's Land, and named in reference to its smoky black fur; and the Vulpine Phalanga, or Vulpine Opossum (_P. vulpina_), widely distributed over Australia, and having a fox-like character about his head. The Flying Phalangas are also allied to this genus.
The _Thylacyni_ are distinguished from the Opossums by the hind-feet having no thumb, by a hairy and non-prehensile tail, and by having two incisors less to each jaw. Only one species is known to exist in Australia,[142] where it is called the "Tasmanian Wolf," and sometimes "Tiger" and "Hyæna." It resembles a wolf in many respects, but its hinder parts are sensibly higher than its fore; its elongated muzzle is almost cylindrical in shape, and very thick; and his tail, broad at the base, tapers away to a fine point. The colour is gray, striped with black across the hinder limbs.
Of the _Thylacynus cynocephalus_ M. Paul Gervais furnishes the following description:[143]--
"There exists in Tasmania an animal of carnivorous habits almost as large as a wolf, and whose external forms at the first glance do not differ sufficiently from those of the latter to prevent one from including him in the family _Canidæ_; but this member of the Carnivora, though he has also the wolf's appetite, and commits havoc in the same manner among the flocks of the colonists, belongs, like most of the Australian Mammals, to the sub-class of Marsupials. There is also much analogy, in many of its osteological characteristics, with the extinct genera of the Hyenodons and Ptérodons; but the latter are in reality Monodelphia, and should be ranged among the Carnivora properly so called. The English settlers in Van Diemen's Land give the thylacynus the name of _Zebra Wolf_, because it has, in effect, the greater portion of the dorsal region and the base of the tail marked with transversal brown lines, like zebra stripes. This carnivorous animal is also their _Dog-headed Opossum_.
"Allied to other Marsupials by the totality of its anatomical characteristics, it is nevertheless easy to distinguish generically; in the first place, it is of great size, and its exterior recalls that of the Wolf, though it has a longer head and a tail garnished with very short hair; the latter is, at the same time, a little depressed. Moreover, it numbers forty-six teeth, with wide intervals between each. It is digitigrade: it has five toes on the fore, and four toes on its hinder feet; its marsupial bones are simply rudimental."
If there be one group of animals more than another whose unforeseen discovery has succeeded in astonishing and embarrassing zoologists, it is assuredly that which has been designated by the name of _Monotremata_. It is the lowest order of vertebrated animals, the very bottom of the scale, approximating in many characteristic points to the family of Birds. The pelvis, it is true, is furnished with marsupial bones, but these animals possess no pouch. The skull is smooth, the brain-case proportionately very small, the snout much prolonged, while the jaws have neither teeth nor soft movable lips. The shoulder-bones do not resemble those of a mammal, but in some respects the scapular joint of the bird; in other respects, that of the reptiles. The feet have five toes, each armed with a long nail; and, in addition, the hind-feet are provided with a perforated spur-like weapon, which is connected with a gland. The genus derives its distinctive name from the circumstance that the orifices of the urinary canals, the intestinal and the generative canals, open, as in birds, into a common vent. The mammary glands, of which only one exists on each side, are not furnished with nipples, but open by simple slits on each side of the abdomen.
This order includes two families: the _Ornithorhynchidæ_ and the _Echidnidæ_, both belonging to Australia and Tasmania. The former are aquatic in their habits, the latter terrestrial.
The Echidna (_Echidna Hystrix_), or Porcupine Ant-Eater, resembles the Porcupine in his general appearance and coat of spines, the Ant-Eater in his snout, mouth, and long lubricated tongue. His legs are very short and thick, and each is furnished with five broad rounded toes; the four toes are armed with a long blunt claw, but on the hind-feet one toe is without a claw, two are short and blunt, and one is of great length, rather curved, and sharp pointed. He measures about twelve inches, and all over the upper-parts of the body and tail is thickly beset with formidable spines, very sharp and strong; over the head, legs, and under-parts with bristly hair of a deep brown colour. His short tail is covered with perpendicular spines. Digging up the ground with his keen claws he disburies a host of insects, which he rolls over his long red cylindrical tongue. He is very timid, and when any one approaches him, coils himself up in a ball, like a hedgehog.
The _Ornithorhynchus_ ("Bird-beaked"), or _Duck-Billed Platypus_, is another extraordinary animal, which seems to serve as the connecting link between the aquatic birds and the mammalia. His length is about twenty inches; his body, long and flattened like an otter's, is covered with a thick soft fur, moderately dark brown above and whitish beneath; his tail is flat and obtuse; his feet are furnished with a membrane that unites the toes; and he has an elongated, enlarged, and flattened muzzle like a duck's beak. It is evident, therefore, that he can live only on soft food, and that his habits must be aquatic; and hence we find him burrowing in the banks of the streams, and groping for his food, like a duck, among the mud and water. The settlers term him characteristically "the River-Mole."
A word of allusion must now be permitted to the _Petrogale_, a genus of the Kangaroo family, described by Dr. Gray. The Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby (_P. penicillata_) has a rough long fur, of a dusky brown hue, tinged with red and gray; a white streak passes down the middle of the throat; his tail is very black, like a raven's plumage, long, and furnished with thick hairs forming a brush. The male is about three feet and a half long. Another species is called the Short-Eared Rock Kangaroo (_P. brachiotis_). Both are excessively wild and shy in their habits, frequenting in the day-time the most inaccessible rocks and the loftiest mountain-peaks, and descending, at the approach of twilight, to feed in the retired and grassy valleys. They flock together in such numbers as to form well-beaten paths along the mountain-sides, and leap from crag to crag with all the agility of the chamois.
* * * * *
The Ornithological Fauna of Australia and the islands of Oceania is incomparably richer than the Mammalogical Fauna, and includes several species of the most dazzling plumage; but nearly all these species inhabit the forests which cover a part of the littoral and probably of the interior. However we must signalize, as peculiar to the Prairies, a great number of the _Brevipennes_ (_i.e._, Short-wings), the Emu or Emeu (_Dromaius Novæ Hollandiæ_); two Palmipeds, the Black Swan and the Cereopsis; and, finally, a bird, the only one of its order, almost as much of a paradox among bipeds as is the ornithorhynchus among quadrupeds, the Apteryx.
The Emu is allied to the cassowary; he is nearly equal to the ostrich in bulk, but has a thicker body, shorter legs, and a shorter neck. He measures more than seven feet in length; his plumage exhibits a mixture of brown and gray; his beak is black, his head covered with feathers; he has real wings, though they are of so small a size as to be useless for flight; they are covered with feathers like the rest of the body, from which, when the bird is not in motion, they can hardly be discerned. Internally, the emu differs, it is said, from all other species, particularly in having no gizzard, and in the extremely small size of his liver.
Emus are killed, according to Captain (now Sir George) Grey, in precisely the same manner as kangaroos, but as they are more prized by the natives, a greater degree of excitement prevails when an emu is slain; shout succeeds shout, and the distant natives take up the cry until it is sometimes re-echoed for miles. The feast which follows the death, however, is a very exclusive one, for the flesh is much too delicious to be made a common article of food. Heavy penalties are accordingly pronounced against young men, and unauthorized persons, who venture to touch it; and these, invariably, are rigidly enforced.[144]
Every schoolboy knows the famous quotation in his Latin grammar which tells of a
"Rara avis, simillimaque nigro cygno."
A _Black Swan_ is no longer a "rara avis." The species (_Cygnus atratus_) belongs to New Holland and Tasmania, and is of the same size as the common swan. His plumage is wholly black, with the exception of the primary pens, which are white; his beak is red, and so is the featherless skin surrounding it at the base. He has been successfully acclimatized in Europe, and ornaments the lakes and streams of many English parks.
The Cereopsis, or Cerefaced Goose, of New Holland, is a Palmiped genus, about the size of a common goose, which, in general appearance, he resembles, except that his legs are longer, averaging from two and a half to three feet. The plumage is of a dingy gray. A large patch of dull white occupies the top of the head; the quill-feathers, both of the wings and tail, are of a dusty black. His voice has a hoarse deep clang, like that of a storm-bell. He usually weighs from seven to ten pounds, and makes an excellent dish for an Australian Christmas table. Specimens may be seen both in the Zoological Gardens of London and Paris.
The _Apteryx Australis_, or Wingless Emu--the _Kiwi_ of the New Zealanders--somewhat resembles a penguin in form, and stands about two feet in height. The only living specimen in Europe lives, I believe, in the London Zoological Gardens. As it does not appear to rank, in scientific classification, with any other family or genus, naturalists have erected it into a distinct order--the _Nullipennes_, or Wingless. The wings of the apteryx are literally rudiments; a mere stump, terminated by a hook. None of his bones are hollow; he has no abdominal air-cells; his feathers have no accessory plume; his feet have a short and elevated hind-toe; his eyes are small; he feeds on insects; and his habits are nocturnal. He is a bird of great physical power, and runs with ostrich-like swiftness; taking refuge, when pursued, in burrows, hollow trees, and the clefts of the rocks. His cry resembles a loud whistle, and the natives entrap the bird by imitating it. When the female has been taken, the male is easily caught, owing to his reluctance to leave her. He will, however, defend himself vigorously with his spurs.
The Erpetological Fauna of Australia, and, in general, of Oceania, is very poor, and comprehends no great species. I may notice a genus of lizards, the Chlamydosaurus, discovered by Allan Cunningham, the naturalist attached to Captain King's expedition, about 1820. It measures about seventeen inches in length, of which twelve inches are apportioned to the tail; is of a yellowish-brown colour; has a large head, with prominent eyes; and a membraneous ruff or tippet round its neck, covering its shoulders, and when expanded spreading about five inches in the form of an open umbrella. If attacked or terrified, it elevates the frill or ruff and makes for a tree; where, if overtaken, it throws itself upon a stem, raising its head and chest as high as it can upon the fore-legs, then doubling its tail underneath the body, and displaying a very formidable set of teeth from the concavity of its large frill, it boldly faces any opponent, biting fiercely whatever is presented to it, and even venturing so far in its rage as to fairly make a fierce charge at its enemy.
Venomous serpents are numerous: particularly the _Hydrophis_, or Water-Snake, very common in the neighbouring seas, where it feeds on fishes. The back part of the body and tail being much compressed, and vertically raised, endows it with the capacity of swimming.