The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1908-07-02
QUEER AUSTRALIAN GAME.
Native Pheasants and Quails-The
Bastard--Soup of Kangaroo Tail.

Bastard--Soup of Kangaroo Tail.
It is on the billabongs and creeks
Of the back country that the best
sport is to be obtained. In wet sea-
sons ducks and teal are to be shot,
and in the ranges between the Muir
ray and the Murrumbdgee Rivers
the "native pheasant, or malice
hen is to be found. This is a fine
table bird, quite equal in my opin-
ion, to any English pheasant. 1t Is
very shy and not easy to obtain. l
knew a man who kept a few blood
hounds for hunting dingoes. He
used to go into the scrub where
there were malice hens, put the dogs
on their tracks and canter after
them. The birds would sometimes
rise in an open space in the scrub,
and have known him to bring down
brace of them when shooting from
the saddle.
Good duck shooting might be had
at the large water holes II 1t were
possible to get near without being
seen. and in the summer evenings
excellent sport is obtainable by
waiting for the bronzewinged pig
cons, which at sunset fly to water.
There is also small quail, like the
Egyptian, to be shot in New South
Wales after harvest. There they
strip the wheat, I. C., take merely
the heads off with stripping ma
chine, leaving the straw. ! have
known half dozen guns make a
capital bag without dogs.
The Australian game bird, how
ever, is the native bustard, or wild
turkey" as it is there called, al
though 1t is now very scarce except
in the extreme back country. At
one time it was common enough in
Victoria, though now rare in that
State, but on the back blocks of New
South Wales it was plentiful a few
years ago.
They were, nevertheless, difficult
to stalk on foot, but, curiously
enough will allow one to drive quite
within range, and / have seen many
shot from a buggy toward the Dar-
ling River. They are capital table
birds, often larger than the biggest
turkey one coulu buy at an English
Christmas market. The flesh of the
breast is brown and tastes like wild
duck. Properly cooked the Austria
Ian bustard has hardly its equal.
1t prefers arid plains and have shot
them on the goldfields OF Western
nc 1io trhn ic
no water. They must be able to
fly great distances, for one never
sees them about the desert country
of West Australia in the hot wealth
er.
Imported hares are very numer-
Gus in certain parts, and the rabbit
is ubiquitous. ! remember an Aus
tralian squatter, who was ruined by
rabbits, saying he had not much left,
but he would be glad to subscribe
pound toward a monument to the
idiot who introduced rabbits and
foxes into Australia! Rabbit
shooting is to be had almost any
where, and as they are trapped and
poisoned by the hundred thousand,
perhaps they too may become ex-
tinct in time. No one who has not
seen the rabbit warrens in the sandy
back country of the Darling would
credit the enormous number which
exist there. | have passed miles Of
,sandhills at dusk which seemed alb
solutely alive with vermin, as Aus
tral!ans call them. This reminds
me of an Englishman engaged to
cook for the shearers on a back sta
'tiorH who by way of treat made
rabbit pie for the men He was
nearly murdered for his pains. Aus
trian shearers had not come, they
said, to eat vermin
Twenty or thirty years ago the
back country squatters, in order to
destroy kangaroos, used to dig huge
pits at the corners of their pad
docks, running yards of calico along
their wire fences and then drive the
kangaroos into the pits, clubbing and
garoo skins were Of no value; now
that they are almost extinct, there Is
a great demand for them. The flesh
of young kangaroo Is uy no means
to be despised, and the kangaroo tail
soup is a delicacy now hardly to be
obtained.-London Field.