Rare Bird

By Stefan Kanfer

THE MOCKERY BIRD by Gerald Durrell

Simon & Schuster; 224 pages; $13.95

Zenkali lies on the line where the waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans meet and merge. But don't look for it; the island exists only in the febrile imaginings of Gerald Durrell. The author of some 15 nature and travel books is unlikely to threaten the reputation of his brother Novelist Lawrence Durrell (The Alexandria Quartet). But there is a sting in his tale of The Mockery Bird, and a pawky satire familiar to viewers of such politi cal cartoons as The Mouse That Roared.

The title role is taken by an animal thought to be extinct by the Zenkalis, an innocent and exploitable people. Their belief is shared by a young Briton, Peter Foxglove, sent to the island by his venal uncle, Sir Osbert, in order to pave the way for a military port and airstrip. But in classic anticolonial style, he crosses over to side with the natives. Peter's conversion is aided by a cast variegated in color and comedy: a king built on the order of a mahogany tree; his impudent adviser Hannibal, who addresses his majesty as Kingy; the irreverent Reverend Judith Longnecker, billed as "the perfect Christian guerrilla"; and the mandatory beauty, Audrey Damien, daughter of a mad old Irishman who is editor of the Zenkali Voice, the island's sole newspaper. In the course of exploration, Peter and Audrey stumble upon a lost valley inhabited by the rara avis itself.

Hope, in Emily Dickinson's dictum, is the thing with feathers, and so it develops on Zenkali. If Osbert gets his way, the Mockery Bird really will die out, and with it the island. For, in a chain of interdependence as outlandish as nature itself, the Mockeries feed on the fruit of the Ombu tree, remove its outer layer and allow the seed to germinate. The tree grows, plays host to a moth that fertilizes the Amela tree--upon which the island's economy depends. Will the London plutocrats get their way? Will Zenkali perish? Will Peter entice Audrey into his sleeping bag?

Readers who cannot solve these riddles represent an even rarer species than the Mockery. But the author's aim is not suspense or, in the end, farce. Despite some antic set pieces and a detailed sense of place, the naturalist declares his true intention in a Tailpiece--translation: public service commercial. "If you have found the book amusing," says Durrell, "and if you appreciate the fact that the world, and its wildlife, is being steadily and ruthlessly decimated ... I wonder if you would like to help us ... at the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust?" The proposal is irregular, but Durrell has put his money where his myth is: in a wildlife organization and a private zoo on his home isle of Jersey in the English Channel. There, hundreds of endangered species are kept in safety. Many of them are odd, but in the author's view, not one of them can compare with the weird and lethal species on the other side of the bars. --By Stefan Kanfer

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