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Around the World
Birds of a feather
Like the crows in this country, the starlings in Rome, who have a
similar colour, have prompted the scientists over there to know why
birds of a feather flock together. This kind of thing may not interest
the average reader. But scientists being scientists who put their noses
to find out the why and wherefore of all kinds of things, have this time
put their heads together to find out why.
The birds' attachment to their feathers, as observed in our crows, is
very moving at times.
If, for instance, you were to pick up a crow's feather and shout
loudly 'kaak kaak' soon there is a whirring of wings and crows flying
around, signalling through their caws that the crow family is in danger.
At certain times a daring crow will fly over your head trying to give
you a passing peck. But this doesn't happen with other birds who shed
their feathers and don't care what happens to them. The 'Seven Sisters'
is another one of our bird families that moves or rather hops around
gregariously displaying, unlike the crows, any family patriotism.
They live peacefully.
But to come back to the starlings in Rome who are also gregarious,
but limit themselves to a group of seven birds in their bird society,
just like our 'Seven Sisters.'
How the birds know how to count up to seven has not been explained.
But the scientists conducting this experiment feel that the cohesion of
the starlings is not due to the distance they keep from one another, but
to their ability to interact with a certain number of birds and that
number is 7.
What metaphysical significance that number 7 has on birds, like
numbers have on human beings, has yet to be explained. But then physics
is what matters to scientists, not metaphysics.
The first cricket team to tour England
Few readers may be aware that the aboriginals of Australia also
played cricket. And that they were good at it. So much so some
financiers got the idea of sending a team of black cricketers to England
in 1868. It was a novelty of course for the English; particularly
because Darwin's Origin of Species depicted the first man as a
primitive.
The tour was a success considering that they played 47 matches,
winning 14, losing 14 and the rest drawn. The discovery of the tour was
the prowess of Johnny Mulagh, whose native name was Unawirrimin. He
scored a total of 1698 runs and took 245 wickets.
The other interesting thing about this tour was that it was the first
team of cricketers to be sent abroad on a tour from Australia. A more
representative team of cricketers from Australia (not aboriginals) came
to England only in 1878.
But the reaction of the English press to the aboriginals from
Australia was not too friendly. Here, for instance, is how the London
Times reacted to the cricketers.
The Times saw the tourists as, "a travestie upon cricketing at
Lords", and, "the conquered natives of a convict colony." The Daily
Telegraph said of Australia that, "nothing of interest comes from there
except gold nuggets and black cricketers."
The first match was played at The Oval and attracted 20,000
spectators, presumably many attending out of curiosity for a
strange-looking race rather than for cricket.
The Times report: said "Their hair and beards are long and wiry,
their skins vary in shades of blackness, and most of them have broadly
expanded nostrils. Having been brought up in the bush to agricultural
pursuits under Europeans, they are perfectly civilised and are quite
familiar with the English language."
"It is highly interesting and curious," the Daily Telegraph observed,
"to see mixed in a friendly game on the most historically Saxon part of
our island, representatives of two races so far removed from each other
as the modern Englishman and the Aboriginal Australian.
Although several of them are native bushmen, and all are as black as
night, these Indian fellows are to all intents and purposes, clothed and
in their right minds." So that was how the Aboriginal team of Australian
cricketers were 'welcomed' in England.
Champion of Aboriginal cricket
Speaking to the Age, an Australian paper, Ian Chappell, the outspoken
and outstanding captain of Australian cricket, said that the first time
he heard of the Aboriginal team of 1868 was when the Australian team
that was sent to tour South Africa in 1966 was being photographed.
The cricketers were preparing to take a mock picture of themselves in
the style of the 19th century cricketing teams when cricketers wore ties
for belts and with two of the cricketing team lying on their sides in
the ground in front. Somebody remarked that they were now looking like
the first Aboriginal team that toured England in 1868. Little by little
Chappell began to hear more of the Aboriginal cricketers with names like
Dick-a-Dick, Tuppeny and Sundown.
Later on he came to be involved with the Aboriginal team that toured
England in the bicentennial year 1988 through an Aboriginal cricketer
Les Knox who had played alongside with Trevor Chappell his younger
brother. "I started to think more about it" he told the Australian
newspaper The Age, " and read more about it. These blokes deserved to be
known for what they'd gone through."
On the next occasion when he had been invited to re-open a memorial
to the Aboriginal team in Harrow in Victoria, that's where most of the
Aboriginal cricketer came from, including the most Famous Johnny Mulagh,
he found that this was the same memorial dedicated by his grandfather,
another famous Australian cricketer Vic Richardson. Chappell told The
Age that he was pleased to follow his grandfather's example.
The day after the re-dedication of the memorial he made a radio
speech and said that the Aboriginal contribution to Australian cricket
should be recognised and honoured by entering it in Australia's Hall of
Fame.
That, Chappell said, had a good reception and many a person he met at
public places, like air ports, congratulating him for what he said. The
anticipated opposition he expected did not arise.
Roving Eye
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