The Stamp Album

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 38, 7 May 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

The Stamp Album

“ ORPITHOPHILATELY.”

A STUDY OF BIRDS AND OF STAMPS

(Concluded.) I’ndcr nnrmal conditions all parrots, lories, macaws, etc., are eaters of fruits, seeds and nuts, their powerful mandibles providing the means to tear into shreds the toughest covering of vegetable origin. Nearly all are birds of brilliant plumage and powerful flight. .Ml of them lay white eggs and nest in hollows of some sort. In size they range from tiny creatures no larger than a sparrow to powerful ruffians large enough successfully to combat an eagle. Two of the strangest of all birds are Miown on stamps of North Borneo and Liberia. These are horn-bills. Their immense beaks are not solid, but are •simply massive shells. The great projections on them seem to be of no particular use, but are evidently the result of natural selection. Horn-bills have verv large wings, but are slow of flight, their measured wing-beats being very violent and extremely noisy, audible for .a quarter of a mile. Hence the bird has (become a war emblem in Borneo, through the operation of the principle called by anthropologists “sympathetic •magic.” The wing-beats sound like a drum: the drum means war; hence the bird is a battle emblem! Horn-hills have most peculiar nesting habits: the female is walled up in a hollow by the male, who provides her with food while she incubates and rears the young. When the offspring are mature the wall of mud and excrement is broken away and the fat progeny and the emaciated female are allowed to emerge. Horn-bills are mostly of large size, the largest being the ground hornbill of South Africa. Australia introduces the only _ kingfisher found on a stamp. This is the kookaburra, called “laughing jackass” by the colonist. It has been suggested that this is a translation via the American route, the “kookoo** meaning to giggle and “burro” being a donkey—hence, laughing jackass. But the scientist calls it Dacela gigas, and while it belongs to the kingfisher family it does not fish, but lives on insects and (reptiles. On many of the stamps of Guatemala we have a bird shown that is the only living symbol of a once mighty religion and a conquering race. This bird is the quetzal—pronounced ket-zal —Pharomaclus mocinno, chosen as the emblem of the republic. In pre-Columbian days when the Maya empire stretched from Honduras to'Yucatan, Quetzalcoatl or Kukul-can was the tutelary deity, the White God of the Mayas. The quetzal >rr trogon was the symbol of Kukul-can, the God of the Feathered Serpent, in w hose honour many a bloody human Sacrifice was offered. The cenote or sacrificial pool of Chicken Itza, in Yucatan, has recently been explored and vast quantities of priceless archaeological relics have been recovered, many of them decorated with the design of the Feathered Serpent. Trogons are the most gorgeous creatures imaginable, with their scarlet breasts, crested heads, flowing plumes which exiend far beyond the tail, and the entire plumage of the back iridescent with the gleam of copper and gold ! Add to this a strange vcntriloquial ability, so that a distant bird may sound as though he is near it hand, or one near may sound a mile away, and it is no wonder that the Mayas saw’ in this resplendent creature !he personification of Kukul-can. the hero-god who taught them civilisation. T.iberia introduces another queer creature —the plantain-eater or tourarou. All touracous are found in Africa.. They are chiefly interesting on account of a strange pigment found in their Wing feathers. This colouring matter, I

I which has been named turaein, is I unique among animals in that it contains copper. After rains the colour ; in the wings is depleted and is not renewed for some time, i It is to be noted that none of the birds so far mentioned members of the great family of passerine birds J which constitute the vast majority of ) fowls. This is easily explained be- : cause birds of this group are generally | small and inconspicuous and hardly appropriate for stamp designs. How- ! ever, it is difficult to understand why | Papua has neglected to show some of the birds-of-paradise. which are passores and the most remarkable of all birds- . New South Wales shows the lyre bird the lowest member of this group. The lvre bird is an acroruoydian passere, by which is meant that the muscles which control the syrinx—and consequently the abilitv to sing—are connected to the ends of the bronchial rings. All other birds have these muscles attached to the middle of the rings and are called mesomyodian passeres. The lyre birds are thus the sole representatives of the primitive songsters from which all other song birds have evolved. Lyre birds are marvellous mimics and whistlers, but are very shy and retiring. They build immense nests which are shaped like a Duch oven, and here they lay a single egg, deep chocolate in colour and about as large as a hen’s egg. . , , Another strange passere is the huia, shown by New Zealand. As may easily be seen, the beaks of the two sexes differ remarkably. That of the male is short, straight and stout; that of the female is long, slender and curved! The case is without parallel among birds. The white-tipped tail-feathers of the huia were prized by the Maori and were worn by the chiefs as insignia of rank. The one remaining passerine bird on a postage stamp is tns wagtail, pictured by Japan. The wagtail is as much a harbinger of spring in Japan as the robin is in America, and its striking black and white coloration, sprightly manners and intimate familiarity have made it a great favourite with a peojple who are remarkable for their appreciation of nature. In concluding this article the writer is keenly aware that he has very likely overlooked some important items. However, the subject is entirely too large for a short stamp article, as only the merest notices have been given. But any reader who desires further information may write to me and I shall be more than glad to furnish any statistics wanted or to give any information. In closing I want to say that it is a source of keen regret to me that the birds which have inspired some of the noblest verse in our language should have utterly failed to attain philatelic distinction. Wordsworth, Keats and Sheliev have written sublime tributes to skylarks, cuckoos and nightingales. Bryant addresses his lines “To a Waterfowl,” Emerson has produced “The Titmouse,” Stevenson “The Whaups,” which are curlews. Thaxter wrote “The Sandpiper,” Tennyson “The Throstle.” But the finest of all bird poems is a six-line fragment by Tennyson, “The Eagle”; He clasps the crag with crooked hands; ('.lose to the sun in lonely lands. Ring’d with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. Geoffrey Chaucer, the Father of English Poetry aud the first to write, in our tongue, verse about birds, would doubtless admit this to he the finest tribute to a bird in our or any other language.