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The familiar laughing-jackass is to be found everywhere, but his peculiar note differs somewhat in different parts; a blackfellow from the south says that the laugh of the northern bird makes him feel sick, whilst the northern native says the same of the southern kingfisher.
The corner-man was a funny fellow, and his by-play with a stout Flemish woman round the flap of the canvas screen, to whom he made amorous advances while his comrades were singing sentimental ballads, was truly comic. The hit of the evening was when an Australian behind the stage gave an unexpected imitation of a laughing-jackass.
As he stooped down, ducks and fowls rushed forward to obtain the food he held in his hand, the pigs came grunting up, and several long-legged birds storks I believe they were stood by waiting for their share, numerous parrots and parroquets were perched on the railings, as tame as the barn-door fowls, while a laughing-jackass looked on complacently from an overhanging bough, every now and then uttering its strange notes.
I was very thankful when at length day broke, and we were saluted by the merry call of the laughing-jackass. We did not shoot him, but we killed a couple of parrots, which we quickly roasted to satisfy the gnawings of hunger, and then mounting our horses made, as we thought, in the direction of the station.
I was awakened just before dawn by the "settler's clock," as the laughing-jackass is frequently called; and lifting my head, by the light of the still burning embers of our fire saw the dominie rubbing his eyes, but no one else was moving. I suspected from this that the last man on guard had gone to sleep.
The laughing-jackass uttered his cheerful notes, and parrots and other birds began to chirp and screech and chatter. The sound tended somewhat to raise my spirits, though the pangs of hunger and thirst which now oppressed me soon became insupportable.
Lonely and tenantless enough it seemed. There was the range of the Copper-mine hills to the south, lighted by the wan moon; and between and to the west a rough scrub country, desolating beyond words, and where even edible snakes would be scarce; spots of dead-finish, gidya, and brigalow-bush to north and east, and in the trees by the billabong the cry of the cockatoo and the laughing-jackass.
"Him one jackass!" observed our guide, Toby. "Jackass! What can the fellow mean?" cried Guy. Then looking up we discovered a large bird not far off who was evidently uttering the extraordinary sound we heard. It was, as Toby told us, a laughing-jackass, or a gigantic kingfisher. So ridiculous were the sounds that we could not help laughing too.
He was right: there was the hideous, unearthly cry of the laughing-jackass, called often the bushman's clock; the screaming cry of thousands of parrots flying here and there through the forest; there was the cackle of the wattle-bird, the clear notes of the magpie, and the confused chattering of thousands of leather-heads; while many other birds added their notes to the discordant chorus, and speedily banished sleep from the eyes of their hearers.
From the trees the bell-bird, the coach-whip, the tewinga, the laughing-jackass, the rifle-bird and regent, filled the air with sound, if not with music. And the black snake, the brown snake, the whip, the diamond, and the death adder glided gently among the fallen leaves and grasses, and held themselves in cheerful readiness for intruders.
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