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Todd mentioned that he hadn't been feeling too kindly toward his local Animal Rescue group. They had kidnapped his dog. He had been letting the dog run around unleashed on the property of a fish farm where he was working, and one day someone came and lured his dog into their car. “He jumped in and went for a ride, as you do, being a dog. He thought it was great fun.” Then they took the dog to Animal Rescue and when Todd called, they refused to give the dog back, saying that it was being mistreated. “He was lean, very lean. They thought, since its ribs were showing a bit, that we'd been starving it. We got him back after a fight. When I took him to the vet, the vet said he was as fit as a race-horse—in prime condition.”

From up above, we heard the distant whine of an engine. It was a propeller plane—though we couldn't see it behind the curtain of trees. “It's either for fire spotting or dope spotting,” Todd said. “The cops have a really big dope task force.”

Alexis's ears perked up. “I have some pot that I got in Melbourne—it's really strong shit.”

Todd gave him an inscrutable look. “It probably came from here,” he said finally. “Tassie supplies Sydney and Melbourne.”

We began to slog up the river again. The sun was bright, but the teabrown water seemed to absorb all the light and our legs were invisible beneath the surface. The forest along the banks was like a shimmering green wall—ferns, tree ferns, ancient trees dripping with moss and lichens. From the air, the Hebe must have looked like a tiny crack in the forest's armor. It wasn't easy pushing through the thigh-deep water—it was like exercising on an underwater treadmill—but it was pleasant being heated from above and cooled from below.

Up ahead, emerging from the undergrowth, we saw what looked like a chicken on stilts. It was creeping through the fern fronds along the bank. “That's a Tasmanian native hen,” Todd said. Like the lobster and the devil, the native hen doesn't live anywhere in the world except Tasmania. It stood about eighteen inches high, its plump, brown-feathered body supported by long gray legs. Its beak was yellow, short, and stout, and its eyes were bright red. With only rudimentary wings, Tasmanian native hens are flightless. Their only defense against predators is their running ability. In short bursts, they've been clocked at speeds up to fifty kilometers per hour. Their main predators are harrier hawks, eagles, feral cats, and Tasmanian devils. And they have also been killed by farmers for grazing on newly planted crops. But people didn't care much for their taste— at least Todd didn't. “You want to know how to cook a native hen?” he asked. “You boil it in a pot with a rock. When it's cooked, you keep the rock and throw away the chook.” Such lack of culinary appreciation was good for the hen. Another of Tasmania's flightless birds, the Tasmanian emu—a long-necked avian giant that stood five feet high on stilt legs— was tasty enough to be eaten to extinction by the island's early colonists.

Tasmanian native hens also have another interesting quality. They're one of the world's few polyandrous birds, poly meaning many and andr meaning men. That is to say, females typically have multiple mates—and these female-dominated family groups are usually bound for life. Bird scientists call this type of family arrangement—whether headed by a male or female—a dynasty. Female native hens may have one, two, three, or four husbands in their little setup—and they mate with them all.

“I'm digging this chook,” said Alexis.

The native hen took one look at our splashing and high-stepped off into the ferns.

As we continued our trek upriver, we checked all the traps again. They were still empty.

Todd assured us the lobsters were all around us. But hidden in the dark waters, camouflaged to blend in with the color of the rocks and stream, they might easily go undetected.

“Would you say they're a cryptic animal?” we asked.

“Cryptic is the perfect word for them,” he said and led us further upriver