In Which Cuthbert the Curassow Causes Trouble

 

 

One of the most charming, but irritating, specimens that I got in Guiana was Cuthbert, the curassow. I bought him when I was up in the creek lands, and he started being a nuisance almost immediately. A curassow is a large bird, as big as a turkey, with jet black feathers all over the body, bright yellow feet and a thick yellow beak. The feathers on the top of the head stand up and curl forward in a short crest, and the bird has large, dark eyes with a mad expression in them.

Cuthbert arrived, being carried by his owner, who was a fat and shy little Chinese. When I purchased the bird, the man stooped and placed him on the ground near my feet. He stood there for a minute or two blinking his eyes and uttering a soft plaintive “peet-peet-peet, ” a noise which was amazing, coming from such a large and fierce-looking bird. I bent down and started to scratch his curly chest and immediately Cuthbert closed his eyes and fell flat on the ground, shaking his wings with delight and giving a sort of throaty crooning noise.

The Chinese assured me that he was very tame and that I did not need to shut him up in a cage, as he would not wander away. Since Cuthbert seemed to have taken such a fancy to me I decided that this was probably correct. When I left off scratching his head, however, he rose to his feet and walked closely beside my legs, still peeting ridiculously. Very slowly he crept forward until he was close enough, and then he lay down across my shoes, closed his eyes and started to croon again. He was gentle and so sloppy in his character that there and then I decided to call him Cuthbert, as I felt that this was the only name that really suited him.

On the evening of Cuthbert’s arrival, I was sitting at a small table in our hut, endeavoring to write up my diary, when Cuthbert, who had been wandering thoughtfully about the room, decided that it was time he bestowed a little affection on me. So he flew up on to the table with a great flapping of wings and walked across it, peeting in a pleased tone, and tried to he down across the paper on which I was writing. I pushed him away irritably, and as he stepped backward, with a look of outraged astonishment on his face at such treatment, one of his great chicken-like feet upset the ink, which, needless to say, went all over the diary, so that I had to rewrite two pages of it.

While I was doing this, Cuthbert made several attempts to climb into my lap but I warned him off vigorously, and eventually he wandered away and stood in deep thought for a few minutes. He decided that approaching me in this slow manner was not successful and so he would have to try and take me by surprise. He waited until I was not looking and then took off and tried to fly up on to my shoulder. He missed his mark, of course, and crashed on to the table with outstretched wings, uttering a shrill squawk of dismay, and upsetting the ink for the second time. I left him in no doubts as to how angry I was and so he retreated into a corner of the room and sat there sulking.

Presently my companion came into the hut, in order to perform the nightly task of hanging up the hammocks in which we slept. He pulled them out of the corner where they were stacked, and was busily occupied in disentangling them from their ropes when Cuthbert spotted him and decided that if I would not pay any attention to him, perhaps my companion would. He cautiously crept across the room and then lay down just behind my friend’s feet and closed his eyes.

While my friend was struggling with the ropes and hammocks, he stepped backward suddenly and tripped over the bird behind him. Cuthbert gave a squawk of alarm and retired to his corner once more. When he thought my friend’s attention was fully occupied, he came out, crept up to him and lay down across his shoes. The next thing I knew, there was a crash and my companion fell to the floor, together with all the hammocks, and from beneath the tangled mass of mosquito nets, rope and canvas, Cuthbert’s head peered out, peering with great indignation at such unmannerly treatment. I made up my mind that he had caused quite enough trouble for one evening, so I took him over to the part of the hut where I kept the animals and tied him with a long cord round his leg to a heavy box and left him there, peeting away vigorously to himself.

Late that night, when we were asleep in our hammocks, I was awaken by a terrific uproar coming from the direction of the animals’ cages. I jumped out of my hammock and, seizing the small lantern which I always kept by my bed for such emergencies, dashed over to see what was happening. I found Cuthbert sitting on the floor, looking extremely annoyed and peeting away to himself. Apparently, he had looked around the various cages and decided that the only one that would be suitable for him to roost on was the cage inhabited by a group of small squirrel monkeys. So he had flown up on top and prepared himself for sleep. Unfortunately, he did not notice that his tail was dangling down in front of the bars and in the bright moonlight the monkeys could see it quite clearly. They were very intrigued by it, and so they pushed their hands out through the bars to feel it and find out what it was. When Cuthbert felt them lay hold of his tail, he obviously thought that he was being attacked by some monstrous animal and flew up to the ceiling like a rocket, leaving two of his large tail feathers still firmly gripped in the monkeys’ paws. It took me a long time to soothe his ruffled feelings and to fix him a new place to sleep, on which he felt quite safe from attack from the rear.

When Cuthbert eventually arrived back at our base camp in Georgetown, I let him have the run of the big garden in which I kept the animals, and he was always creating an uproar, due to his delight in collapsing across people’s feet when they were not looking. The garden was surrounded by a very tall fence made of corrugated iron which was too high for Cuthbert to fly over. However, he became convinced that if he went on trying hard enough he would eventually succeed in getting over the top of the fence. So every day he used to practice. He would walk away ten yards and then turn around, run toward the fence with a fierce expression on his face, flapping his wings so that gradually his heavy body would rise from the ground and he would zoom toward the fence, flapping vigorously.

But he never quite succeeded in getting high enough and he had never mastered the art of being able to turn suddenly in mid-air, and so he would fly on and on, straight for the fence, and as it came closer and closer and it became quite obvious to him that he was going to crash into it, he would utter loud squawks as if he were endeavoring to tell the fence to get out of the way. Then there would be a terrible crash and Cuthbert would slide down the corrugated iron in a flurry of feathers, his long nails making the most bloodcurdling screeching noises as he tried to stop himself. These crashes that he had did not seem to do him or the fence any harm, and as long as he was happy, I left him alone.

One day, however, Cuthbert approached the fence to have his daily battle with it and discovered to his delight that someone had left a ladder leaning against it. By the time I had noticed this, Cuthbert had hopped his way up to the top rung and was sitting there looking extremely proud of himself. As I went up to the ladder to try to catch him, he flapped his wings and flew down to the road on the other side. There he stopped for a moment to have a quick preen before sauntering off in the direction of the market. Hastily I called all our helpers and we rushed out into the road in pursuit of the truant Cuthbert. He glanced over his shoulder and saw us bearing down on him in a body, and so he turned and ran as fast as he could. He led us a gay dance round the market place with half the stall owners and most of the customers joining in the hunt, and it was not until half an hour later that we eventually cornered him and carried him, peering loudly, back to the garden.

Other birds that used to cause us a lot of amusement were the big, highly colored macaws. All these birds had been hand-reared by various people in Guiana, from whom I had purchased them. So they were all quite tame. For some reason or other all macaws in Guiana are called Robert, in the same way that parrots in England are generally called Polly, so when you bought a macaw you were quite certain that, as well as being able to scream like a factory siren, they would be able to say their own name. We had eight of these birds and they would carry on lengthy and most amusing conversations with each other, using only the word “Robert.” “Robert? ” one would say in a questioning tone of voice. “Robert, Robert, Robert, ” another one would reply. “R-r-r-robert, ” a third one would say, and so they would go on, and they would cock their heads on one side and look so wise that I was almost forced to believe that these silly conversations meant something.

One pair of these macaws did not like being confined in a cage at all, for they were used to having the run of the house. I used to let them wander all over the garden while we were in Georgetown, but when the time came for me to sail with the collection, I had to put the macaws in a cage. I built a very nice cage for them with a strong wire front but I had forgotten that with their great beaks these birds can gnaw their way through any sort of wood. We had not been on the ship for more than three days before this pair of macaws had nibbled right round the edge of their cage front and the whole thing fell out with a crash. Three times I repaired the cage and pushed the angry macaws back inside it, and three times they nibbled my repairs to pieces and escaped once again. In the end I gave it up as a bad job and used to let them wander round the hold whenever they wished. They would walk slowly and carefully along the tops of the line of cages, talking to me or to their companions in their “Robert” language.

 

 

 

Chapter Twelve

 

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