Bird-Lovers Quarrel

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23275, 18 February 1939, Page 15 (Supplement)

Bird-Lovers Quarrel

By DENIS DUNN

I AM not an argumentative man —too lazy. I usually content myself with a slightly cynical smile suggestive of superior knowledge. (You have to be careful how you do 'it. I once tried it on a carter in a pub, and he wanted to continue the argument with the butt end of a pint pot.) But my Cousin Adrian is one of those impossible people -who get an argument down, kneel on it, and worry it to death. In his youth he was one of those children who go vermilion with passion and jump up and down, screaming:— "You did, too! You did, too!" One day we were smoking our pipes ( » peacefully in a field. As the smoke curled upward, and I watched the birds fussing in the hedgerows, I said, dreamily, to Adrian: — "Ah, Adrian, 'we should be thankful for the birds! Every evening, every day, you can see them all—" ''Hear That?" "Doing the Lambeth Walk—Oi!" concluded Adrian, coarsely. I was-about to retort when I heard the note. It was shrill and monotonous, with a certain metallic quality which I recognised immediately. "Hear that?" I cried. "That's the yellow-backed copperhammer!" "'Tisn't!" said Adrian, promptly. That galled me! And when 1 call, I call bad. • "Listen again!" 1 snarled. "That was the yellow-backed copperhammer." 'Twasn't!" said Adrian; "it was the crested touker!" ■, I just gave him my cynical smile, and at that moment the note sounded again —' 'tank-tank-tank-tank!" ~ "Yellow-backed copperhammer!" I said, firmly. "Crested tonker!" snapped Adrian. There was a yokel leaning against the hedge, and I shouted to him: — "Queerest Old Bird'l "George, we are having a bit of an argument. Just to settle it, tell us which is the queerest old bird round these fields?" ; "Old Widow Gompit!" said George, amply. ' 'Why ?" "Hor hor!" howled Adrian, coarsely. We gazed fiercely at each other, and, shutting our eyes, held our breath and , waited for the note to sound again. I heard a strange whistling. "P'sst! What was that?" I whispered. . "My asthma," muttered Adrian, crossly.

Then it came—" tank-tank-tank-tank!" "If that's not a copperharamer, I'm dotty!" I shouted. * "Exactly " said Adrian. My blood was up and, jumping to my feet, I cried:— "The note is coming from that clump of trees. We will go and look for the bird. I bet you five bob it's a copperhammer." "Done!" agreed Adrian. "George," I called to the yokel, ' whait's through that clump of trees?" "A gurt muck'eap!" he explained. "The acoustics are queer round here," I defended. "They ought to have them seen to," agreed Adrian. Rubbing It In At that moment the note sounded again to the right. We struck off and at every yard it grew clearer and clearer. As we walked, I rubbed it in. "I'm afraid you have lost, old man," I smiled. "I know that bird. When I was young, a copperhammer came into my bedroom every morning!" He promptly replied that when he was young his bedroom was practically a home from home for crested tonkers. "At breakfast time;' J he said, dreamily, "they used to take what they could from my mouth. I often wonder what became of. them." 1

* "Died of starvation, probably," I said.

But L the note was now so clear that this bickering and we began to run to".v.;i! it.

Galloping through a hedgerow, we suddenly found ourselves in a neat little garden in front of a trim white cottage. In the porch was a benevolent old chap in plus-fours. "Anything I can do, gentlemen?" he smiled. "My friend is looking for a bird," puffed Adrian. "Mr. Wivenhoe" "Ah, youth, youth!" sighed the old ass. "How well I remember—" "Look here—" I was beginning, when the "tank-tank-tank" sounded again, somewhere behind the old boy. rJThere it i 5,"..1 laughed, - joyously. 'The copperhammer!" v "Sir," said Adrian, "that note; tell us, was it a copperhammer, or was it a crested tonker?" "That note?" beamed the old gentleman, "Oh. that was Mr. Wivenhoe!" "What!" we gulped. "Oh, yes," smjled the old gentleman, and called, "Wivenhoe—here a minute!" A little sandy-haired chap with a black bag and a bowler appeiyred in the porch. "Morning, gents all!" he bobbed. "Mr,, Wivenhoe," introduced the old gentleman. "Our village piano-tuner!"