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Project Gutenberg Australia HomeReturn to Index of Poems
The Bustard Quail are quite select, they have no toes behind,
They do the very opposite of other feathered kind;
The hen’s the bigger, brighter spark, and rules the gentle male;
It’s she who does the wooing,
All the billing and the cooing—
A dominating Amazon is Lady Bustard Quail.
If there is fighting to be done It’s she who does it all,
The while amid their grassy haunt she holds her mate in thrall.
She drives off every prying minx with vicious beak and nail,
From near the nesting centre,
Tho’ not long it sees her enter,
For a fickle, saucy termagant is Mrs. Bustard Quail.
She walks away uncaring, to repeat her little tricks,
And leaves to him the hatching and the rearing of the chicks;
But he doesn’t fret or follow on the base deserter’s trail,
Nor care about his beauty,
When the shrew has shirked her duty,
For a quiet, submissive midget is the henpecked Mr. Quail.
By day he takes the brood about through tangled grass and weed,
Where others like him fare and fend and other clutches feed;
At night they nestle under him and hide from rain and hail;
For they never know a mother,
Only Dad, Sis, and brother;
But he’s a dual parent is the trusty father Quail.
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