LIFE IN THE BUSH

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 109, 9 May 1924, Page 8

LIFE IN THE BUSH

QUAINT CREATURES

QUEST IN AUSTRALIA

FOR BRITISH MUSEUM.

ffllOM ODR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, Ist; May.

. Refreshed by his recent trip to Sydney, Captain G. H. Wilkins is back in Queensland hard at work again on his big. task of making a collection of Australian, fauna for the British Museum. "With hie staff of experts he has penetrated many'little-known parts of Australia since he started last year, and in some, such as. the country around the Gulf of Carpentaria, , the results have been disappointing. But .just now he is revelilng in.-, what-lie-calls a "rich patch" at. Westwood, in. Southern Queensland, and in ,a letter from him- to the "Adelaide Register,". ■ describing his experiences, he gives a fascinating description of 'some of, our animals in their wild stated. especially the wonderful flying squirrels, which do . not really fly, for they'have no wings, but. glide.down to th<: earth from high trees with, the aid of a peculiar skirt of fiir-covered skin which they are able to stretch out and catch the air parachute-fashion. ■

"The residents of the district," says Captain Wilkins, "are all interested in the work, and specimens came in from all sides; beautiful, slim, and graceful whiptail kangaroos, rock wallabies, scrub wallabies,1 and swampers were present in numbers, and during the moonlight nights opossums and the large and wonderful phalangers, commonly known, as flying squirrels, were easily sought and easily, found.. These moonlight excursions for opossums and squirrels -were real picnics in the fullest sense of the '.word;-, for' we were lucky, in having for oup neighbours Mr; Burns (superintendent of the experimental station), Mrs. Burns, and the. staff,- and they joined us in the moonlight raids. ; "The. roads in general' are not very good, and since the.rains the creeksare almost impassable. : Deep ruts are washed out, leaving banks of; silt on either side. One never ceases to marvel at the ease with which a Ford car can nego-tiate-rough roads, and with the aid of pick and shovel work, and with four or five lusty individuals pushing behind, we crossed most creeks and, black soil patches. .". ' - '.-" ■■;.:■'■..'-....: ; ■

"Across a bog was the wooded creek where the squirrels lived, and., these beautiful creatures, varying in colour from dark grey to rwhitc, were, observed volplaning gracefully from tree to tree, supporting. themselves, on the air with 15 inches ■ square •of furry . skirt stretched by their extended limbs. ' ■

; "It seemed a shame to kill these beauties, but thousands of people in other countries thirst for a knowledge and a sight of Australia's unique fauna, and our deep regret was that we could not enable them to see not only the beautiful animal made as life-life as woderri preservation and-taxidermy can make it,' but'as, we saw it by moonlight-—free, in the woods, soaring from the tops of the tall,' clean-looking eucalypts ■•■to the lower branches across the ripplin" water. The free and graceful movements of the squirrels compare strangely with the stealthy,: cat-like movements of the opossum., The opossum sneaks' along" the branches, and peers.round the' limbs with sidelong scrutiny., but both tho 'possum and the sauirrel are welcome additions to our collection with the British Museum of Natural History.

Native bears are plentiful in this district, and several of them had. a narrow escape from death when we were hunting in the moonlight. We are taking a very limited number of thse fascinating animals, for specimens, and it seems a pity that they cannot be fully protected, for it is always a delight to meet one of them when roaming through the bush and to spend a few minutes ■watching' their droll, antics. '

"Our moonlight trips were most enjoyable, apart from the actual shooting, and there was, just a spice of danger to add to the excitement, as we. realised one night when a rustling in the' grass was found to be caused by the wriggling of aj brown snake that we had disturbed. We stepped high for the rest of the,journey home that night.

."Since a week or so after the rain the-shrubs in'this neighbourhood are alive with insects, including many rare forms of handsome butterflies. Seyeral new and beautiful forms have been added to the record for the district, and Mr. Burns, who is a skilled entomologist, has with utmost generosity presented duplicates of new;species that he ■captured to our collection, and the Bri.tish Museum, will be the proud possessor of these and other rare forms, that are found only in this immediate neighbourhood; Stick insects! and praying mantis are also-plentiful, and, as can well be.imagined, where, other insect life is the mosquitoes and March flies are not entirely, absent. .:>..,_. "Mosquitoes of the 'Scotch Grey' type and others are in thousands, and in the evening- and early mornings they make life almost: unberable. They are not so bad, however, as they have been in some places I have visited, and, contrary to what most people would expect, they are not nearly so bad here in this subtropical area as they were in the Arctic regions north of Canadfi, where I was with the Stefanson Canadian Arctic expedition. Up there, during the short summer months, it was impossible -to do any work with .- bare hands, and often when hunting, the barrel of the rifle would be so'thickly covered with mosquitoes that it was'impossible to see the. sights. .• Dogs and other animals were worried almost to' death, and they would go and lie in the-icy^wat-ers of the sea or.a lake to escape , the fierce mosquitoes." ■