Chapter 8

I devoted the next morning to labelling my samples and writing a description of the moth. That documentation might prove important. I thought I’d wait till past noon and then walk back to that eucalyptus to see whether there were any beetles there. I was thinking about my plan, when Aggie accosted me.

“Gordy, I was wondering about the geography.”

“Oh?”

“A lot of Australia, especially the center and the west, is desert. But here and there are lakes or chains of lakes. I’ve been on both Java and New Guinea, and they’re jungly throughout.”

“Well, first of all, Australia is a lot bigger than those islands, even if you toss in Sumatra. And it’s further from the equator. But let me tell you a story.”

“OK.”

“Tiddalik woke up one morning with a great thirst, an unquenchable thirst, and began to drink until all the fresh water here in central Australia was consumed. All the animals and plants began to die of thirst. The other animals conferred, conspiring against Tiddalik and tried to devise a plan to get him to release all of the water he had swallowed. Boobook, the owl, came up with the notion that the eel could make the frog laugh, causing waters to re-flood the earth. And so the eel danced on his tail and the frog laughed and water filled the holes where the eel danced and the tracks became rivers.”

“Where’s that from?”

“I don’t know. Have you read Kipling?”

“Lots. I read the Just-so Stories and The Jungle Book to my boys.”

“Well, there you are. Kipling was a boy in India. Those are tales he was told. They’re ‘explain’ stories. How the leopard got his spots. Why the elephant has a trunk. Why the armadillos shell folds up. Here, the bands felt a need to explain geological and geographical features. The length and twists of the Murray. The rocks near the harbor by Grafton. The desert.”

“But do they believe the explanations?”

“Did your boys believe that elephants have trunks because a croc pulled on one?”

“Of course not!”

“And do western kids think that crows and foxes or grasshoppers and ants converse?”

“No.”

“Yet they do in Aesop.”

“Right. Now tell me about the Murray.”

“The Murray is the track left by Ngurunderi in the Dreaming as he traveled down the river in his bark canoe in search of his two run-away wives. At that time the river was only a small stream. A giant cod fish (Ponde) swam ahead of Ngurunderi, widening the river with sweeps of its tail. Ngurunderi chased the fish, trying to spear it from his canoe. It’s a long story. But Ponde’s tail and Ngurunderi’s canoe and spear casts account for many of the river’s features.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure, Aggie. And wear your hat!”

I set out for the shrubs, but was distracted by a scorpion. It didn’t look like the Yashenkoi I’d already taken, so I took this one, too. I then continued. As I approached the acacia, I noted a few slits on the northern side of a dune ripple. There weren’t supposed to be slit spiders around here, though I knew they florished in South Australia. They were voracious ant hunters. I approached from a side and squatted on my heels. I’d observe for an hour or so.

The Slit Spider of red sand-dune habitats makes a burrow with a wide, horizontal slit opening on the down-slope of a dune. The lower edge of the slit juts out beyond the upper edge, so that ants (and other insects) running down-slope across the slit are guided into the cavity where they are grabbed by the lurking spider.

I only watched for ten minutes when an Ochetellus worker ran obliquely along the dune and slipped into the trench, slid and disappeared. I didn’t need to watch dinner. But I wondered whether it was Cryptoerithus halli or one of the other land spiders. Perhaps I’d return with a spade and excavate the burrow.

I went further and walked around the acacia and the eucalypts, catching a glimpse of the bright blue of the fairy wrens. Good thing Lois had her photos! But I noticed a few loose feathers and picked them up and putting them in an envelope. (Samples are samples.)

The eucalypt seemed to be a favorite of several types of leaf beetles. I took half a dozen samples of what appeared to be two or three species of Cadmus, but who knows? They might well be variants. Work to be done in Brisbane. The acacia appeared to be aneura, unsurpringly. Aggie would know. The branches had a lot of red lerps, so I took a sample, as well as a treat. [Lerp is produced by the larvae of psyllids as a protective cover. They are commonly referred to as lerp insects, of which there are over 300 species in Australia. The sweet lerp is eaten like candy by many Aboriginal groups.]

Lurking under the acacia’s shade was a large huntsman waiting for it to be cool enough to fetch dinner. Not having gloves, I didn’t attempt a capture. But I noted the holes that Al had mentioned. I agreed that they were neither snakes nor dunnarts, but I was doubtful where bilbies were concerned. Reg would know, but I’d bet on a gecko. Perhaps a “Southern Sand-plain.” Lucasium something-or-other. Or even a goanna – perhaps a young Gould’s monitor.