What Alan has produced is a series of "field notes" documenting the behavior of species that do not exist. Birds that glide upside down, lizards that engage in primitive agriculture, carefully cultivating little shaded patches where desert plants can thrive. A cow-like ruminant that has evolved to brew beer in one of its stomachs, though it serves no discernible biological purpose. Calista provided sketches, which she rendered in a traditional, realistic manner that looks as though it could have been found in a natural history book published anytime from 1700 to 1900.
My favorite field note describes a symbiotic relationship between a bison-like animal and a diving seabird. They live on a sparse, windswept, sandy seaside bereft of trees. Because of the lack of trees, birds have evolved to nest in the warm, insulating tangle of hair that grows above the bison's shoulders. Our naturalist observes a fox greedily approaching a nest full of eggs, which appears to have been built on a hillock. But suddenly the ground lunges up, and as the fox tumbles to the sand, a giant bearded face swings around, its horns pointed right at him. He scurries away to find an easier meal somewhere else.
The birds have learned to communicate with the bison, flying high over the sand to scout out edible vegetation and report it back to the bison. This allows the bison to conserve energy as it looks for food or a mate in the inhospitable land, which is too poor to support the large herds that are familiar from the American West. At times, when vegetation can't be found on land, the pair will strike out into the ocean, the bird guiding them to a rich patch of seaweed for the bison to eat, tarrying sometimes while the bird dives into a rich school of fish.
When a bison gives birth, a young bird befriends the calf, and they grow up together and become lifelong companions. They know each other's voices and use their distinct, evocative calls (high and haunting in the case of the seabird, low and rumbling in the case of the bison) to find each other over long distances in the sere landscape. The birds are quasi-monogamous, but their relationships with their mates are nowhere near as close or enduring as their relationships with their bison companions. Because of the effectiveness of their cooperation, both bison and bird can satisfy their nutritional needs in relatively little time, and they spend much of their days playing games or simply chattering to each other and enjoying each other's company as they wander along the shore, occasionally taking a dip in the salty ocean.
It is unclear whether they understand death. On one hand, each engages in elaborate mourning rituals if the other dies.
On the other hand, if they do understand death, then the animals' subsequent behavior is hard to explain. If the bird dies first, the bison ceases its itinerant grazing pattern and spends most of its time tracing wider and wider circles around its companion's burial place, behavior that resembles a searching pattern. Likewise for the bird, which upon the death of the bison launches a search that will last for the rest of its life, circling high in the air, swooping down sometimes when it sees a lone bison in the sand, but flying away once it recognizes that it has not found its lifelong friend. In either case, the widower from time to time emits the cry that it once used to summon its companion, and then pauses, listening intently for a response that will never come.
