Sea and River-side Rambles in Victoria/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
Now then having progressed so far that we have some knowledge of the shells with which we are likely to meet, let us again wander this bright morning to the Hopkins River, where we left our readers awhile since; but an hour ago as we peeped from our chamber window the rain mizzled thickly down, and we had well nigh given up all hope of a country ramble; but this was only what the Irish peasantry call the "pride of the morning," and any anxiety we might have felt was soon dispelled by the bright gleams of sunshine, pouting out at first, but soon bursting forth in full splendour; so having made a hasty toilet let us start before the heat becomes oppressive. Well supplied with all that is needful for any thing that may turn up, we are soon away, shaking the dewdrops off the grass, the pink flowering Convolvulus, and the pale blue Veronica, or Speedwell. The Hopkins River is about a mile and a-half to the eastward of the town, and the walk to it is full of interest, but as the day is young yet, we may even linger on our way. Let us visit the little spring exuding from the rock near the tunnel, and gather, "en passant," specimens of the Colobanthus Billardierii, which though an uncommon plant, abounds here, and then descend towards the Pertrobe Lagoon, noticing on the embankment of the hill cutting the shining-leaved Trachycaryon Klotschii. We stay on the water's edge for a time to note the elegant little Triglochin decipiens, (Arrow-grass,) the blue Mimulus or Monkey flower, and other plants which choose such moist situations; nor can we resist the pleasant shrill chirp which issues ever and again from the dense cover of the rushes; it is that of an old friend, which from its habit of flitting through the reeds and low grasses is only imperfectly known, and it cost us, we remember, some years since, many hours of patience before we could ascertain from what source the Grasshopper-like chirp emanated. With us it is an especial favorite, like the Blackcap, more frequently heard than seen, so retiring indeed that it seldom emerges from the concealment afforded by the plants common to low lying wet lands, but occasionally may be seen clinging gracefully to the heads of the rushes, where probably it obtains its food. Its wings are remarkably short and ill adapted for flight, still it appears to flit from place to place with marvellous rapidity; the beak is nearly black, with strong bristles at its base; crown of the head ferruginous; back and wings of dark olive with black markings; a streak of very pale blue extends from the base of the bill over the eye on each side. Throat, pale blue in the male, but rufous in the female; the tail, which is three inches in length, nearly as long again as the whole body, consists of six feathers with slender black shafts webbed on each side with minute hairy filaments at equal distances; and so like are these feathers to those of the Emu, that this bird has received the name of the Emu Wren. Its nest is of grass lined with feathers, and is in fact a perfect ball concealed in tufts at the trunks of trees
Walking around the Lagoon, which is now nearly dried up, we collect shells of the Cyclas, Nassa, and Truncatella, and we also discover here a rare Diatom, Meloseira nummuloides; towards the Merri River we find Ruppia maritima, (Tassel grass,) and the Brookweed, Samolus littoralis, a small white flower ever so slightly tinted with pink on a slender rigid stem. Passing near the Jetty, where are dense beds of the beautiful spathulate-leaved blue flowered Scævola suaveolens, we wander over the low sand hummocks which are so conspicuous a feature here; keeping all the way in sight of the sea, we observe the shrubby Pimelea serpyllifolia flourishing all along their ridge, and the gay scarlet flowering Kennedya, forming a gorgeous carpet, with here and there the flesh-tinted Caladenia, with its long lance-shaped leaf. Resting awhile to inhale the exhilarating breezes so tantalisingly appetising, which are wafted in from the ocean, we remember that we must take the track over the hill, to obtain two plants of interest, which we saw blooming there many seasons back without at the time gathering specimens,—the one is the blue, leafless, waxy-looking Lobelia gibbosa, the other (and its abundance in this spot will prevent any doubt in identifying it) the Gentiana montana, which has delicate white or straw colored, corollas, beautifully veined with blue of the palest imaginable tint. These secured, we clamber over the steep hill, passing by numerous deep holes, concealed almost by the thick bushes of the wild Raspberry, the Forget-me-not, and other of our indigenous plants;—they are the burrows of that uncouth creature, the Wombat, which is very numerous along the coast. A worthy friend in the town has taken much pains in endeavouring to rear the young of this and others of the Marsupialia. Great, indeed, was the grief of the townsfolk, when his first protegé, "Peter" died; a general mourning when the second of the same name drowned himself in some soup; but now to console him, he has successfully brought up two young Wombats, taken from the pouch of the mother which he had shot, and these "puir mitherless bairns" follow him about in his peregrinations, without exhibiting any of that timidity which, in their wild state appears natural to them.
The summit of the hill being gained, we have a pretty peep of the river through the clusters of Casuarinæ (She-Oaks), Cherry trees, (Exocarpi,) and Boxwood (Bursaria), which are left to ornament and protect the Botanical Gardens in course of formation on the bank higher up. Breaking through a thick low scrub of Beyera viscosa, we approach the Hopkins River, through whose mouth the stream rushes by a narrow channel into the sea, but, ye stars! Look upon the heap of fine silvery bream and yellow speckled salmon trout, our companion, who was to join us here, has secured!!; "its the early bird," says he, still we had not been idle, and these made us look forward to breakfast hour with some eagerness, and an appetite which many would envy. We try our luck; but not a nibble can we get, and we verily believe these cannibals of fish are finishing their morning meal elsewhere, so we stow away our fishing tackle, form our rods into handles for landing nets, and as the morning air is still chilly, light our pipes and roam away amidst the deep holes, startling myriads of crabs and small fry of all kinds. Our friend hears with amazement that the Actinæ (Sea Anemones) are unknown to us in this locality, so we hasten to where the waves are dashing in over low flat rocks, glittering with the tasselly bead-like Conferva Darwinnii, and the dark green Codium tomentosum, of which there is also an attenuated form in the same or similar situations. We endeavour to reach one, in fact the spot, but are driven back by the heavy waves, yet by perseverance it is at last attained, and oh! the charms which a hasty glance revealed to our wondering eyes, so rapid, indeed, that any attempt at describing species would be entirely out of the question,—there were—
"Living flowers, that rooted to the rock,
Late from the thinner element,
Shrunk down within their purple stems to sleep,
Now feel the water, and again
Awakening, blossom out
All their green anther necks."
And well has the Poet Southey described this habit of these beautiful creatures; seeing them hanging either like deep-red gelatinous masses from some dark rocky recess, or concealed entirely under every ledge where they may lie unharmed, it would be nearly impossible to recognise any affinity to the lovely tinted forms expanded here before us, crimson, green, pink and white striped, olive spotted with dark brown, white with yellow tentacles, all eager to clutch any small Mollusca or Annelida, which the returning tide may bring within their reach; for delicate as they appear, they are voracious enough, take our word for it, and Johnston in his "History of British Zoophytes,"[1] relates, that a specimen of Actinia crassicornis which had been originally two inches in diameter, had somehow contrived to swallow a valve of Pecten maxmimus, (Scollop Shell) of the size of an ordinary saucer. The shell, fixed within the stomach, was so placed as to divide it completely into two halves, so that the body stretched tensely over had become thin and flattened like a pancake. All communication between the inferior portion of the stomach and the mouth was of course prevented, yet instead of emaciating and dying of an atrophy, the animal had availed itself of what undoubtedly had been a very untoward accident, to increase its enjoyments and its chances of double fare. A new mouth, furnished with two rows of numerous tentacula, was opened up on what had been the base, and led to the under stomach; the individual had indeed become a sort of Siamese twin, but with greater intimacy and extent in its unions!! Let our lady readers, who are so enthusiastic about pets of this kind, have a care of their crockery, more particularly as Lewes also informs us, that "anything and everything is carried straightway into its stomach to be there tried, and rejected only on proved incompatibility."[2]
It is from Gosse, Rymer Jones, and others, whose beautiful Works on all the objects of the Sea-side display evidence of such untiring research into their habits and economy, that we place the utmost reliance in them, we learn that the tentacles of these creature are prehensile, and this power depends on the presence of tiny barbed weapons coiled in elastic cells, which are found in inconceivable multitudes in the tissues of the tentacles, of the lips, of the stomach, of the frilled ovarian bands, and especially in some species, in long threads or filiferous capsules, which are protruded from pores in the integument of the body.
The structure of these weapons is as follows: Each consists of an oval or elliptical sac of transparent membrane, within which is seen a thread coiled up, and in some instances an oblong or lozenge-shaped chamber. At the pleasure of the animal, or under the stimulus of pressure, this thread is shot forth from one end of the cell with great force, until it extends to a length from twice to fifty times that of the cell. When fully extended it is seen that the thread is but a continuation of the cell itself, that when it was dormant it was turned in, and that in the process of expulsion, every part of its length has actually been turned inside out like the finger of a glove. Sometimes the thread appears simple, but in those cases in which a chamber appears within the cell, it is furnished with an armature of barbed weapons, which, after expulsion of the threads, project from their sides in all directions. The propulsion of these small threads is sufficiently forcible to enable them to enter the tissues of animals, and the barbed structure enables the weapon to retain its hold in the flesh, which facts Mr. Gosse (from whose Work[3] the foregoing has been sketched) thinks, warrants the presumption, that a highly poisonous fluid is injected at the same time, capable of arresting and destroying animal life.
At a recent meeting of the Dublin University Zoological and Botanical Association, Dr. M'Donnell stated in reference to the urticating organs of the Actiniæ and on the spasmodic action caused by them when suffered to touch the nerves of a frog prepared for electrical experiments, that at one time he had thought this was caused by electricity generated in these animals; but that further experiments and the use of a very delicate galvanometer had caused him to abandon this view, and to ascribe these movements to the local irritation caused by the poison contained in the cells of the Actiniæ.[4]
These stinging properties are mentioned by various authors from Aristotle down to Johnston; but Mr. Lewes agrees with Sir John Dalyell, that the tentacles do not secrete any poison, as from experiments repeatedly tried, he finds that animals frequently escape unhurt after being seized by the tentacles; probably, however, it may be present to a greater degree in some species than in others, and more fully developed at certain seasons; hence the diversity of opinion amongst so many really observant men. The grasp of the Hydra is, as Johnston remarks, "eminently poisonous," small water-worms which this polyp is only able to attack, are so tenacious of life, that they may be cut to pieces without their seeming to receive any material injury or pain; yet the poison of the Hydra instantly extinguishes every principle of life and motion.[5] From analogical reasoning then we may fairly conclude that the Actiniæ do possess the powers attributed to them, at any rate there can be no doubt of the peculiar rasping sensation experienced when the finger is touched by the tentacles. Landsborough[6] mentions that the Italian epicures eat many kinds of Actiniæ as food, and adds, that they smell like a large lobster, and form to their taste a savoury repast, and we should certainly give them a decided preference to the Cephalopoda, (Cuttle fishes, &c. &c.) which are so much appreciated in the Indian, or the Trepang (Sea Cucumber), in the Chinese market.
And so we sit chatting, until fairly driven away by the incoming tide, the spray from which has already given us wet jackets, nor by the way are our knees one whit improved by kneeling on the sharp muscles which cover every part of the coast, and the sun is getting high too, so we get ferried across the river, and wander along its banks, festooned with the yellow Zygophyllum Billardierii, the elegant Myrtle flowering Myoporum, and the blue Dianella, until we arrive at the house of a friend, whose hospitable door is ever open to the traveller, and here we were entertained with much kindness, and even as Isaac Walton's hostess dressed his fish after his heart, so did ours, quite in accordance with our ideas of gastronomic skill. But we must not linger here longer than is necessary, and once more buckling on our knapsacks, we are in a short time wending our way with light hearts to the precipitous cliffs, overhung with dense clusters of the red-leaved Rhagodia nutans, the sweet-smelling white flowering Alyxia buxifolia, and the handsome Composite, with Rosemary-like leaves Ozothamus turbinatus, and now scrambling down where a small declivity presents itself, at the immense risk of being immolated on the rocks beneath for our daring, we are once more on the sea beach, not without startling a splendid Wedge-tailed Eagle, which had evidently been in search of food here. He alights again not far off,—take this glass, and see what a splendid fellow he is, standing so proudly erect in his dark-brown coat, and with such vividly bright eyes. From the middle tail feathers exceeding the outer by some four inches, the tail has a wedge-shaped termination, from which the Eagle gets its popular name. The earliest account of this bird was given by Collins in his "English Colony in New South Wales, in 1802," but no mention is there made of the wedge-shaped tail. The individual there engraved was captured by Captain Waterhouse near Broken Bay, and showed his immense strength by sending his talons through a man's foot, whilst lying at the bottom of a boat with his feet tied. The head, too, is beautifully figured in Mitchell's "Australian Expeditions,[7] and the brilliancy of the eye admirably delineated. We remember once at a pic-nic near this spot, whilst luncheon was being spread out on the grass, a splendid fellow hovering over us for some time, decamping only when a rifle ball was sent through his tail feathers, as an intimation not to try closer quarters, but little did he seem to heed this so courteous a message. Magpies are evidently at feud with this as with all birds of prey, and buffet him as he flies along Without making much impression.
The mode adopted by the Wedge-tailed Eagle of capturing the Opossum is interesting;—he goes to a hollow tree in which it is probable his victim may be located, and with his talons, scrapes the bark, until the Opossum becoming alarmed, rushes out and is soon pounced upon by its crafty foe. The natives aware of this ruse, resort to a similar plan; they take a piece of rough wood, and scrape it over the surface of the tree, with precisely the same results.
But the sun is over the yard-arm, so we, like other of our fellow-workers and travellers, cry "spell-ho," until our next chapter.
