Throwim Way Leg by Tim Flannery

Author:Tim Flannery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

The business of my trip was mammalogy. But I was disappointed to find the mammals of Dokfuma less obvious and interesting than the birds. As in the Neon Basin, the tiny faces of the Moss-forest Rats and Mountain Melomys were those encountered most commonly when emptying the trapline in the morning. There were clearly other mammal species about, but it was difficult to trap them.

One particular track near our camp fascinated me. Still very fresh and broad, it clearly belonged to a largish mammal. Every evening I placed a trap either on or near it. But I never did discover what the animal was—every morning I returned to find the trap knocked out of the way by some unknown, yet clearly very muscular beastie. My best guess was that it was a giant rat of some kind. My failure was unfortunate, for the identity of the giant rats inhabiting the Star Mountains remains mysterious.

Freddy and Serapnok would depart from the camp each morning with dog in tow. By afternoon they would return, more often empty-handed than otherwise and we would sit by the fire chatting. During these intervals I learned much about both of them. Freddy was one of those generous people who is always delighted to see his friends happy. Serapnok is happy-go-lucky and good-natured. He delights in nothing as much as playing the village clown.

After discovering the lighter side of Serapnok, I was amazed to learn one afternoon that it was he who had single-handedly almost exterminated Bulmer's Fruit-bat. He had dangled on a rope hundreds of metres above the ground inside Luplupwintem in order to reach the bat colony and had, he said, taken Bultem's very first shotgun with him, along with his five boxes of cartridges.

It was a tricky descent. As he went over the edge he shouted back to his wife that she had better get a move on and marry someone else, for he was sure to slip on the way down!

When he reached the bottom of the cave, Serapnok took up his gun and shot directly into the thickest part of the bat colony. He was nearly knocked unconscious by the rain of stricken bats falling on his head. After that, he shot at an oblique angle to avoid the falling bodies. Time after time the shots rang out and Serapnok gathered at first hundreds, then thousands, of bats. He filled bilum after bilum with them, tying each load to the rope to be hoisted aloft. Finally there were no more bats to be seen and Serapnok tied himself to the rope and yelled to be pulled up. That night, the Wopkaimin ate bats till they were farcarted.

Serapnok and Freddy's hunting forays here at Dokfuma, however, were proving so unsuccessful that at length I began to suspect that they were walking only just far enough to sit down and light up a Paradise Twist undetected, before returning to be fed in the afternoon. But all scepticism was dispelled one day when they did return triumphant.

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