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Updated: May 20, 2025
Overhead were numbers of cockatoos, parrots, and other birds of gay plumage, while now and then we caught sight of a brush-turkey running along rapidly over the ground. Many of the butterflies we saw were of magnificent size, and all richly adorned with the most brilliant colours. At length the savages stopped under some high trees with wide-spreading branches, though thinly clothed with leaves.
We saw also a couple of maleos, a species of brush-turkey, allied to the megapodi or mound-making birds which we had met with in our island. They live also in the northern part of Celebes, and come down to the shore in order to lay their eggs in the black, hot, volcanic sand. It is a handsome bird, the plumage glossy black and rosy white, with a helmeted head, and elevated tail.
To the mainland many of the birds and animals of the country are altogether confined; the Birds of paradise, the black cockatoo, the great brush-turkey, and the cassowary, are none of them found on Wamma or any of the detached islands. I did not, however, expect in this excursion to see any decided difference in the forest or its productions, and was therefore agreeably surprised.
It was a pleasant relief from a purely vegetable diet, and he became a proficient egg-thief; then the birds built their nests beyond his reach. Once he was savagely pecked by an angry brush-turkey and forced to defend himself. It aroused a combativeness and destructiveness that had lain dormant in his nature.
As they advanced they discovered our brush-turkey pen, and, greatly to our distress, some of them instantly stooped over, and began to seize the birds, and to fasten them by their legs round their waists. Others rushed at the body of the kangaroo, which hung by the legs to the branch of a tree, and immediately began cutting it up, each man appropriating a portion.
It proved to be a brush-turkey, which he forthwith proceeded to pluck and prepare for the spit; lighting a fire meanwhile, so that it might burn well up and be in a fit state for cooking when wanted.
Curious-looking things, with a sort of helmet on their heads." "I think I know them," said the captain, "a sort of brush-turkey, I expect, the maleo birds I think they are called, and they are splendid eating. I don't think we shall starve, my lad." "Day!" said Mark eagerly, pointing to a faint gleam away to his right. "Yes; the first touch of dawn. I think we may prepare to go now.
I suppose the Talegallus the best-known brush-turkey must be looked on as an exception to all other birds with regard to the point I am considering; for this abnormal form buries its eggs in the huge mound made by the male, and troubles herself no more about them.
"Arrah, now," he exclaimed, as he came back, "they all vanished like imps just in one moment, before I could get hold even of the tail of one of them." However, the two birds which had been killed by Nub and the doctor were of great value. The latter said that he believed they were a species of the "brush-turkey," often found in New South Wales, and that their flesh was excellent.
"No, I don't believe you ever did," laughed the mayor. "The fact is, young man, that is not domestic chicken at all. It is the flesh of the brush-turkey, a wild fowl which the bushmen or blackfellows bring in here to market. It is a great delicacy." "I have read of these bushmen," said Bob. "Are they quite wild?" "Indeed they are," the mayor replied.
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