Scrub Fowl

Early in the hunt the dogs put up a scrub-fowl, which noisily fluttered and spluttered through the jungle, and, ending its flight on a lofty branch, jeered and chuckled as it peered down at the intruders. ❋ Unknown (2003)

Soon the storm travelled across the sea, vapour gathered on the hills against an inky background, and all the birds began to call — the swamp pheasant the loudest and most mellow, the scrub-fowl the merriest, with its coarse hilarity and contented chuckles. ❋ Unknown (2003)

All through the forest where the soil is light and friable the indefatigable birds work with energy, and with much noise during the evening; for the white ants, having come to their kingdom, must be kept down, and the capacity of the scrub-fowl for such food represents a prodigious natural check. ❋ Unknown (2003)

None of the cheerful jeers and chuckles of the scrub-fowl comes from the trampled jungle; the great flight of terns, which settled on the sand-spit on Sunday and sat in a dense crowd, head to sea, has been dispersed. ❋ Unknown (2003)

In one locality in North Queensland the most admirable and eagerly sought-after food was human flesh, and perhaps the next best dainty was a python, or the egg of a scrub-fowl containing a forward chick. ❋ Unknown (2003)

Honey-eaters whistled among the trees, scrub-fowl chuckled in the jungle. ❋ Unknown (2003)

Struck with bewilderment, the honey-eaters became dumb, the dismayed doves forgot to coo, the scrub-fowl ceased their chuckling, and three cockatoos flew from the blue-fruited quandong-tree shrieking abominable sarcasms. ❋ Unknown (2003)

When one wanders among such scenes, where there is no sign of traffic save that of his own footprints, no sound save the confidential whispering of the sea, the thin screams of terns and the whimsical cackling of scrub-fowl in the jungle, he becomes a part of the realm of Nature, a trivial and insignificant item soon to disappear, but for a brief space supreme — the only part of teeming Nature capable of disinterested joy in all the other parts. ❋ Unknown (2003)