"The Southern Apteryx."
1848. W. Westgarth, `Australia Felix,' p. 137:
"The present Apterix or wingless bird of that country (NewZealand)."
1851. `Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land,' vol. i. p. 300 [Letter from Rev. W. Colenso, Waitangi, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, Sept. 4, 1850:
"You enquire after an Apteryx. How delighted should I be to succeed in getting you one. Three years ago Owen expressed a similar wish, and I have repeatedly tried, but failed. Yet here they still are in the mountain forests, though, doubtless, fast hastening towards extinction. I saw one in its wild state two years ago in the dense woods of the interior; I saw it clearly. . . . Two living specimens were lately taken by the Acheron, steamer, to Sydney, where they died; these were obtained at the Bay of Islands, where also I once got three at one time. Since then I have not been able to obtain another, although I have offered a great price for one. The fact is, the younger natives do not know how to take them, and the elder ones having but few wants, and those fully supplied, do not care to do so. Further, they can only be captured by night, and the dog must be well trained to be of service."
1874. F. P. Cobbe, in `Littell's Age,' Nov. 7, p. 355 (`Standard'):
"We have clipped the wings of Fancy as close as if she were an Apteryx.'
Black Ash—Nephelium semiglaucum, F. v. M.,N.O. Sapindaceae; called also Wild Quince.
Black Mountain A.— Eucalyptus leucoxylon, F. v. M.,N.O. Myrtaceae.
Blue A.—Elaeodendron australe, Vent., N.O. Celastrinae.
Blueberry A.— Elaeocarpus holopetalus, F. v. M.,N.O. Tiliaceae.
Brush Apple— Acronychia baueri, Schott. (of Illawarra,N.S.W.).
Crow's A.—Flindersia australis, R. Br., N.O. Meliaceae.
Elderberry A. (of Victoria)—Panax sambucifolius, Sieb., N.O. Araliaceae.
Illawarra A.—Elaeocarpus kirtonia, F. v. M., N.O. Tiliaceae.
Moreton Bay A.—Eucalyptus tessellaris, Hook., N.O. Myrtaceae.
Mountain A. (see Mountain Ash).
New Zealand A. (see Titoki).
Pigeonberry A.—Elaeocarpus obovatus, G. Don., N.O. Tiliaceae.
Red A.—Alphitonia excelsa, Reiss, N.O. Rhamnaceae.
1847. L. Leichhardt, `Overland Expedition,' p. 75:
"The Moreton Bay Ash (a species of Eucalyptus). ..was here also very plentiful."
1827. `Captain Robinson's Report,' Dec. 23:
"It was a subject of complaint among the settlers, that their assigned servants could not be known from soldiers, owing to their dress; which very much assisted the crime of `bush-ranging.'"
1837. J. D. Lang, `New South Wales,' vol. ii. p. 31
"The assigned servant of a respectable Scotch family residing near Sydney."
1845. R. Howitt, `Australia,' p. 75:
"Of the first five persons we saw to Van Diemen's Land, four were convicts, and perhaps the fifth. These were the assigned servants of the pilot."
1848. W. Westgarth, `Australia Felix,' p. 324:
"Under the old practice, the convicts, as soon as they arrived from Britain, were assigned among the various applicants. The servant thus assigned was bound to perform diligently, from sunrise till sunset, all usual and reasonable labour."
1843. `Penny Cyclopaedia,' vol. xxv. p. 139, col. 2:
"It is comparatively difficult to obtain another assignee,—easy to obtain a hired servant."
1848. W. Westgarth, `Australia Felix,' p. 324:
"Any instance of gross treatment disqualified him for the future as an assignee of convict labour."
1836. C. Darwin, `Journal of Researches' (1890), c. xix. p. 324:
"I believe the years of assignment are passed away with discontent and unhappiness."
1852. John West, `History of Tasmania,' vol. ii. p. 126:
"That form of service, known as assignment, was established byGovernor King in 1804."
1861. T. McCombie, `Australian Sketches,' p. 117:
"The assignment system was then in operation, and such as obtained free grants of land were allowed a certain proportion of convicts to bring it into cultivation."
1889. J. H. Maiden, `Useful Native Plants,' p. 183:
"This plant, having obtained some reputation in Australasia in certain pulmonary complaints, has acquired the appellation to the Colonies of `Queensland Asthma Herb'. Nevertheless, it is by no means endemic in Australasia, for it is a common tropical weed."
1790. J. White, `Voyage to New South Wales,' p. 214:
"Sept. 5, 1788. About half after six in the evening, we saw an Aurora Australis, a phenomenon uncommon in the southern hemisphere."
1823. Wentworth's Cambridge poem on `Australasia':
"And grant that yet an Austral Milton's song,Pactolus-like, flow deep and rich along,An Austral Shakespeare rise, whose living pageTo Nature true may charm in every age;And that an Austral Pindar daring soar,Where not the Theban Eagle reach'd before."
1825. Barron Field, `First Fruits of Australian Poetry,' Motto in Geographical Memoir of New South Wales, p. 485:
"I first adventure. Follow me who list; And be the second Austral harmonist." Adapted from Bishop Hall.
1845. R. Howitt, `Australia,' p. 184:
"For this, midst Austral wilds I wakenOur British harp, feel whence I come,Queen of the sea, too long forsaken,Queen of the soul, my spirit's home."—Alien Song.
1855. W. Howitt, `Two Years in Victoria,' vol. i. p. 43:
"Every servant in this Austral Utopia thinks himself a gentleman."
1868. C. Harpur, `Poems' (ed. 1883), p. 215:
"How oft, in Austral woods, the parting dayHas gone through western golden gates away."
1879. J. B. O'Hara, `Songs of the South,' p. 127:
"What though no weird and legendary loreInvests our young, our golden Austral shoreWith that romance the poet loves too well,When Inspiration breathes her magic spell."
1894. Ernest Favenc [Title]:
"Tales of the Austral Tropics."
1896. [Title]:
"The Austral Wheel—A Monthly Cycling Magazine, No. 1, Jan."
1896. `The Melburnian,' Aug. 28, p. 53
"Our Austral Spring." [Title of an article describing Spring inAustralia.]
1756. Charles de Brosses, `Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes,' tom. i. p. 80:
"On peut de meme diviser le monde austral inconnu en trois portions. .. .L'une dans l'ocean des Indes au sud de l'Asie que j'appellerai par cette raison australasie."
1766. Callander, `Terra Australis,' i. p. 49 (Translation of de Brosses)(`O.E.D.):
"The first [division] in the Indian Ocean, south of Asia, which for this reason we shall call Australasia."
1802. G. Shaw, `Zoology,' iii. p. 506 (`O.E.D.'):
"Other Australasian snakes."
1823. Subject for English poem at Cambridge University:
`Australasia.'
[The prize (Chancellor's Medal) was won by Winthrop Mackworth Praed. William Charles Wentworth stood second.] The concluding lines of his poem are:
"And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd,A new Britannia in another world."
1846. C. P. Hodgson, `Reminiscences of Australia,' p. 77:
"How far had these ideas been acted upon by the Colonists ofAustral Asia?" [sic.]
1852. J. West, `History of Tasmania,' vol. 1. p. 109:
"`The Austral-Asiatic Review,' by Murray, also made its appearance [in Hobart] in February, 1828."
1855. Tennyson, `The Brook,' p. 194:
" Katie walksBy the long wash of Australasian seasFar off, and holds her head to other stars,And breathes in converse seasons."
[Altered in Edition of 1894 to "breathes in April-autumns."]
1857. Daniel Bunce [Title]:
"Australasiatic reminiscences."
1864. `The Australasian,' Oct. 1, First Number [Title]:
"The Australasian."
1880. Alfred R. Wallace [Title]:
"Australasia." [In Stanford's `Compendium of Geography andTravel.']
1881. David Blair [Title]:
"Cyclopaedia of Australasia."
1890. E. W. Hornung, `Bride from the Bush,' p. 29:
"It was neither Cockney nor Yankee, but a nasal blend of both: it was a lingo that declined to let the vowels run alone, but trotted them out in ill-matched couples, with discordant and awful consequences; in a word, it was Australasiatic of the worst description."
1890. `Victorian Consolidated Statutes,' Administration and p.obate Act, Section 39:
"`Australasian Colonies,' shall mean all colonies for the time being on the main land of Australia. ..and shall also include the colonies of New Zealand, Tasmania and Fiji and any other British Colonies or possessions in Australasia now existing or hereafter to be created which the Governor in Council may from time to time declare to be Australasian Colonies within the meaning of this Act."
1895. Edward Jenks [Title]:
"History of the Australasian Colonies."
1896. J. S. Laurie [Title]:
"The Story of Australasia."
In `Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia,' Sydney, Jan. 1892, is printed a paper read at the Geographical Congress at Berne, by E. Delmar Morgan, on the `Early Discovery of Australia.' This paper is illustrated by maps taken from `Nordenskiold's Atlas.' In a map by Orontius Finoeus, a French cosmographer of Provence, dated 1531, the Terra australis is shown as "Terra Australis recenter inventa, sed nondum plene cognita." In Ortelius' Map, 1570, it appears as "Terra Australis nondum cognita." In Gerard Mercator's Map, 1587, as "Terra Australis" simply.
In 1606 the Spaniard Fernandez de Quiros gave the name of Terra Australis del Espiritu Santo to land which he thought formed part of the Great Southland. It is in fact one of the New Hebrides.
The word "Australian " is older than "Australia" (see quotations, 1693 and 1766). The name Australia was adapted from the Latin name Terra Australis. The earliest suggestion of the word is credited to Flinders, who certainly thought that he was inventing the name. (See quotation, 1814.) Twenty-one years earlier, however, the word is found (see quotation, 1793); and the passage containing it is the first known use of the word in print. Shaw may thus be regarded as its inventor. According to its title-page, the book quoted is by two authors, the Zoology, by Shaw and the Botany by Smith. The Botany, however, was not published. Of the two names—Australia and Australasia—suggested in the opening of the quotation, to take the place of New Holland, Shaw evidently favoured Australia, while Smith, in the `Transactions of the Linnaean Society,' vol. iv. p. 213 (1798), uses Australasia for the continent several times. Neither name, however, passed then into general use. In 1814, Robert Brown the Botanist speaks of "Terra Australis," not of "Australia." "Australia" was reinvented by Flinders.
Quotations for " Terra Australis"—
1621. R. Burton, `Anatomy of Melancholy' (edition 1854), p. 56:
"For the site, if you will needs urge me to it, I am not fully resolved, it may be in Terra Australis incognita, there is room enough (for of my knowledge, neither that hungry Spaniard nor Mercurius Britannicus have yet discovered half of it)."
Ibid. p. 314:
"Terra Australis incognita. ..and yet in likelihood it may be so, for without all question, it being extended from the tropic of Capricorn to the circle Antarctic, and lying as it doth in the temperate zone, cannot choose but yield in time some flourishing kingdoms to succeeding ages, as America did unto the Spaniards."
Ibid. p. 619:
"But these are hard-hearted, unnatural, monsters of men, shallow politicians, they do not consider that a great part of the world is not yet inhabited as it ought, how many colonies into America, Terra Australis incognita, Africa may be sent?"
Early quotations for "Australian"
1693. `Nouveau Voyage de la Terre Australe, contenant les Coutumes et les Moeurs des Australiens, etc.' Par Jaques Sadeur [Gabriel de Foigny].
[This is a work of fiction, but interesting as being the first book in which the word Australiens is used. The next quotation is from the English translation.]
1693. `New Discovery, Terra Incognita Australis,' p. 163(`O.E.D.'):
"It is easy to judge of the incomparability of the Australians with the people of Europe."
1766. Callander, `Terra Australis' (Translation of De Brosses), c. ii. p. 280:
"One of the Australians, or natives of the Southern World, whom Gonneville had brought into France."
Quotations for "Australia"
1793. G. Shaw and I. E. Smith, `Zoology and Botany of New Holland,' p. 2:
"The vast Island or rather Continent of Australia, Australasia, or New Holland, which has so lately attracted the particular attention of European navigators and naturalists, seems to abound in scenes of peculiar wildness and sterility; while the wretched natives of many of those dreary districts seem less elevated above the inferior animals than in any other part of the known world; Caffraria itself not excepted; as well as less indued with the power of promoting a comfortable existence by an approach towards useful arts and industry. It is in these savage regions however that Nature seems to have poured forth many of her most highly ornamented products with unusual liberality."
1814. M. Flinders, `Voyage to Terra Australis,' Introduction, p. iii. and footnote:
"I have . . . ventured upon the readoption of the original Terra Australis, and of this term I shall hereafter make use, when speaking of New Holland [sc. the West] and New South Wales, in a collective sense; and when using it in the most extensive signification, the adjacent isles, including that of Van Diemen, must be understood to be comprehended." [Footnote]: "Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into Australia; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth."
1827. P. Cunningham, `Two Years in New South Wales,' vol. i. p. 9:
"New South Wales (or Australia, as we colonials say)."
1839. C. Darwin, `Naturalist's Voyage' (ed. 1890), p. 328:
"Farewell, Australia! You are a rising child, and doubtless some day will reign a great princess in the South; but you are too great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret."
1852. A Liverpool Merchant [Title]:
"A Guide to Australia and the Gold Regions."
1873. A. Trollope, `Australia and New Zealand,' c. viii. (new ed.) p. 152:
"The colonies are determined to be separate. Australia is aterm that finds no response in the patriotic feeling of anyAustralian. . . . But this will come to an end sooner or later.The name of Australia will be dearer, if not greater, toAustralian ears than the name of Great Britain."
[Mr. Trollope's prophecy has come true, and the name ofAustralia is now dearer to an Australian than the name of hisown separate colony. The word "Colonial" as indicatingAustralian nationality is going out of fashion. The word"Australian" is much preferred.]
1878. F. P. Labilliere, `Early History of the Colony of Victoria,' vol. i. p. 184:
"In a despatch to Lord Bathurst, of April 4th, 1817, Governor Macquarie acknowledges the receipt of Captain Flinders's charts of `Australia.' This is the first time that the name of Australia appears to have been officially employed. The Governor underlines the word. . . . In a private letter to Mr. Secretary Goulbourn, M.P., of December 21st, 1817, [he]says . . . `the Continent of Australia, which, I hope, will be the name given to this country in future, instead of the very erroneous and misapplied name hitherto given it of New Holland, which, properly speaking, only applies to a part of this immense Continent.'"
1883. G. W. Rusden, `History of Australia,' vol. i. p. 64:
"It is pleasant to reflect that the name Australia was selected by the gallant Flinders; though, with his customary modesty, he suggested rather than adopted it."
1895. H. M. Goode, `The Argus,' Oct. 15, p. 7, col. 4:
"Condemning the absurd practice of using the word `Colonial' in connection with our wines, instead of the broader and more federal one, `Australian.' In England our artists, cricketer, scullers, and globe-trotters are all spoken of and acknowledged as Australians, and our produce, with the exception of wine, is classed as follows:—Australian gold and copper, Australian beef and mutton, Australian butter, Australian fruits, &c."
Ibid. p. 14:
"Merops or Bee-Eater. A tribe [of birds] which appears to be peculiarly prevalent in the extensive regions of Australia."
1869. J. Lubbock, `Prehistoric Times,' vol. xii. p. 378:
"The Australoid type contains all the inhabitants of Australia and the native races of the Deccan."
1878. E. B. Tylor, `Encyclopaedia Britannica,' vol. ii. p. 112:
"He [Professor Huxley] distinguishes four principal types of mankind, the Australioid, Negroid, Mongoloid, and Xanthochroic, adding a fifth variety, the Melanochroic. The special points of the Australioid are a chocolate-brown skin, dark brown or black eyes, black hair (usually wavy), narrow (dolichocephalic) skull, brow-ridges strongly developed, projecting jaw, coarse lips and broad nose. This type is best represented by the natives of Australia, and next to them by the indigenous tribes of Southern India, the so-called coolies."
1889. E. Wakefield, `New Zealand after Fifty Years,' p. 81:
". . . the aweto, or vegetable-caterpillar, called by the naturalists Hipialis virescens. It is a perfect caterpillar in every respect, and a remarkably fine one too, growing to a length in the largest specimens of three and a half inches and the thickness of a finger, but more commonly to about a half or two-thirds of that size. . . . When full-grown, it undergoes a miraculous change. For some inexplicable reason, the spore of a vegetable fungus Sphaeria Robertsii, fixes itself on its neck, or between the head and the first ring of the caterpillar, takes root and grows vigorously . . . exactly like a diminutive bulrush from 6 to 10 inches high without leaves, and consisting solely of a single stem with a dark-brown felt-like head, so familiar in the bulrushes . . . always at the foot of the rata."
1896. A. Bence Jones, in `Pearson's Magazine,' Sept., p. 290:
"The dye in question was a solution of burnt or powdered resin, or wood, or the aweto, the latter a caterpillar, which, burrowing in the vegetable soil, gets a spore of a fungus between the folds of its neck, and unable to free itself, the insect's body nourishes the fungus, which vegetates and occasions the death of the caterpillar by exactly filling the interior of the body with its roots, always preserving its perfect form. When properly charred this material yielded a fine dark dye, much prized for purposes of moko." [See Moko.]
1889. J. H. Maiden, `Useful Native Plants,' p. 579:
"Axe-breaker. Wood hard, close-grained and firm. Its vernacular name emphasizes its hardness."
1893. J. F. Hogan, `Robert Lowe,' p. 271, quoting from `The Atlas' (circa 1845):
"Traces, however, of the Egyptian language are discoverable among the present inhabitants, with whom, for instance, the word `Bale' or `Baal' is in continual use . . . ." [Evidently a joke.]
The Babbler—Pomatostomus temporalis, V. and H.
Chestnut-crowned B.—P. ruficeps, Hart.
Red-breasted B.—P. rubeculus, Gould.
White-browed B.—P. superciliosus, V. and H.
(2) The parts of a station distant from the frontage (q.v.).
1872. Anon. `Glimpses of Life in Victoria,' p. 31:
". . . we were doomed to see the whole of our river-frontage purchased. . . . The back blocks which were left to us were insufficient for the support of our flocks, and deficient in permanent water-supply. . . ."
1880. J. Mathew, Song—`The Bushman':
"Far, far on the plains of the arid back-blocksA warm-hearted bushman is tending his flocks.There's little to cheer in that vast grassy sea:But oh! he finds pleasure in thinking of me.How weary, how dreary the stillness must be!But oh! the lone bushman is dreaming of me."
1890. E. W. Horning, `A Bride from the Bush,' p. 298:
"`Down in Vic' you can carry as many sheep to the acre as acres to the sheep up here in the `backblocks.'"
1893. M. Gaunt, `English Illustrated, `Feb., p. 294:
"The back-blocks are very effectual levellers."
1893. Haddon Chambers, `Thumbnail Sketches of Australian Life,' p. 33
"In the back-blocks of New South Wales he had known both hunger and thirst, and had suffered from sunstroke."
1893. `The Australasian,' Aug. 12, p. 302, col. 1:
"Although Kara is in the back-blocks of New South Wales, the clothes and boots my brother wears come from Bond Street."
1891. Rolf Boldrewood, `Sydneyside Saxon,' vol. xii. p. 215:
"`What a nice mare that is of yours!' said one of the back-block youngsters."
1870. `The Argus,' March 22, p. 7, col. 2
"I am a bushman, a back blocker, to whom it happens about once in two years to visit Melbourne."
1892. E. W. Hornung, `Under Two Skies,' p. 21:
"As for Jim, he made himself very busy indeed, sitting on his heels over the fire in an attitude peculiar to back-blockers."
1829. `The Picture of Australia,' p. 173:
"The Parameles, to which the colonists sometimes give the name of badger. . . ."
1831. Ross, `Hobart Town Almanack,' p. 265:
"That delicious animal, the wombat (commonly known at that place [Macquarie Harbour] by the name of badger, hence the little island of that name in the map was so called, from the circumstance of numbers of that animal being at first found upon it)."
1850. James Bennett Clutterbuck, M.D., `Port Phillip in 1849,' p. 37:
"The rock Wallaby, or Badger, also belongs to the family of the Kangaroo; its length from the nose to the end of the tail is three feet; the colour of the fur being grey-brown."
1875. Rev. J. G. Wood, `Natural History,' vol. i. p. 481:
"The Wombat or Australian Badger as it is popularly called by the colonists. . . ."
1891. W. Tilley, `Wild West of Tasmania,' p. 8:
"With the exception of wombats or `badgers,' and an occasional kangaroo . . . the intruder had to rely on the stores he carried with him."
ibid. p. 44:
"Badgers also abound, or did until thinned out by hungry prospectors."
1875. `Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania,' September, p. 99 [`Port Davey in 1875,' by the Hon. James Reid Scott, M.L.C.]:
"The dwellings occupied by the piners when up the river are of the style known as `Badger-boxes,' in distinction from huts, which have perpendicular walls, while the Badger-box is like an inverted V in section. They are covered with bark, with a thatch of grass along the ridge, and are on an average about 14 x 10 feet at the ground, and 9 or 10 feet high."
This word, marked in `O.E.D.' and other Dictionaries asAustralian, is provincial English. In the `English DialectDictionary,' edited by Joseph Wright, Part I., the word isgiven as used in "Ireland, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Suffolk,Hampshire and New Zealand." It is also used in Essex.
1872. C. H. Eden, `My Wife and I in Queensland,' p. 83:
"In every milking yard is an apparatus for confining a cow's head called a `bail.' This consists of an upright standiron, five feet in height, let into a framework, and about six inches from it another fixed at the heel, the upper part working freely in a slit, in which are holes for a peg, so that when the peg is out and the movable standiron is thrown back, there is abundance of room for a cow's head and horns, but when closed, at which time the two standirons are parallel to each other and six inches apart, though her neck can work freely up and down, it is impossible for her to withdraw her head . . ."
1874. W. M. B., `Narrative of Edward Crewe,' p. 225:
"The former bovine female was a brute to manage, whom it would have been impossible to milk without a `bail.' To what man or country the honour of this invention belongs, who can tell? It is in very general use in the Australian colonies; and my advice to any one troubled with a naughty cow, who kicks like fury during the process of milking, is to have a bail constructed in their cow-house."
(2) By transference, to stop travellers in the bush, used of bushrangers. The quotation, 1888, shows the method of transference. It then means generally, to stop. Like the similar verb, to stick up (q.v.), it is often used humorously of a demand for subscriptions, etc.
1844. Mrs. Chas. Meredith, `Notes and Sketches of New South Wales,' p. 132:
"The bushrangers . . . walk quickly in, and `bail up,' i.e. bind with cords, or otherwise secure, the male portion."
1847. Alex. Marjoribanks, `Travels in New South Wales,' p. 72:
". . . there were eight or ten bullock-teams baled up by three mounted bushrangers. Being baled up is the colonial phrase for those who are attacked, who are afterwards all put together, and guarded by one of the party of the bushrangers when the others are plundering."
1855 W. Howitt, `Two Years in Victoria,' vol. ii. p. 309:
"So long as that is wrong, the whole community will be wrong,— in colonial phrase, `bailed up' at the mercy of its own tenants."
1862. G. T. Lloyd, `Thirty-three Years in Tasmania and Victoria,' p. 192:
"`Come, sir, immediately,' rejoined Murphy, rudely and insultingly pushing the master; `bail up in that corner, and prepare to meet the death you have so long deserved.'"
1879. W. J. Barry, `Up and Down,' p. 112:
"She bailed me up and asked me if I was going to keep my promise and marry her."
1880. W. Senior, `Travel and Trout,' p. 36:
"His troutship, having neglected to secure a line of retreat, was, in colonial parlance, `bailed up.'"
1880. G. Walch, `Victoria in 1880,' p.133:
"The Kelly gang . . . bailed up some forty residents in the local public house."
1882. A. J. Boyd, `Old Colonials,' p. 76:
"Did I ever get stuck-up? Never by white men, though I have been bailed up by the niggers."
1885. H. Finch-Hatton, `Advance Australia,' p. 105:
"A little further on the boar `bailed up' on the top of a ridge."
1888. Rolf Boldrewood, `Robbery under Arms,' p. 368:
"One of the young cows was a bit strange with me, so I had to shake a stick at her and sing out `Bail up' pretty rough before she'd put her head in. Aileen smiled something like her old self for a minute, and said, `That comes natural to you now, Dick, doesn't it ?' I stared for a bit and then burst out laughing.It was a rum go, wasn't it? The same talk for cows and Christians. That's how things get stuck into the talk in a new country. Some old hand like father, as had been assigned to a dairy settler, and spent all his mornings in the cow-yard, had taken to the bush and tried his hand at sticking up people. When they came near enough of course he'd pop out from behind a tree, with his old musket or pair of pistols, and when he wanted `em to stop, `Bail up, d— yer,' would come a deal quicker and more natural-like to his tongue than `Stand.' So `bail up' it was from that day to this, and there'll have to be a deal of change in the ways of the colonies, and them as come from `em before anything else takes its place between the man that's got the arms and the man that's got the money."
1889. R. M. Praed, `Romance of Station,' vol. i. c. ii. [`Eng. Dial. Dict.']:
"Alec was proud of the stockyard and pointed out . . . the superior construction of the `crush,' or branding lane, and the bailing-up pen."
Musa Banksii, F. v. M. M. Hillii, F. v. M. M. Fitzalani, F. v. M., N.O. Scitamineae.
The Bananas which are cultivated and form a staple export of Queensland are acclimatized varieties.
1871. G. Krefft, `Mammals of Australia':
"The Myrmecobius is common on the West Coast and in the interior of New South Wales and South Australia: the Murrumbidgee River may be taken as its most eastern boundary."
1893. A. R. Wallace, `Australasia,' p. 340:
"Thus we have here [W. Australia] alone the curious little banded ant-eater (Myrmecobius fasciatus), which presents the nearest approach in its dentition to the most ancient known mammals whose remains are found in the oolite and Trias of the Mesozoic epoch."
Broadbent's Bandicoot—Perameles broadbenti, Ramsay.
Cockerell's B.—P. cockerelli, Ramsay.
Common Rabbit B.—Peragale lagotis, Reid.
Desert B.—P. eremiana, Spencer.
Doria's B.—Perameles dorerana, Quoy & Gaim.
Golden B.—P. aurata, Ramsay.
Gunn's B.—P. gunni, Gray.
Less Rabbit B.—Peragale minor, Spencer.
Long-nosed B.—Perameles nasuta, Geoffr.
Long-tailed B.—P. longicauda, Peters & Doria.
North-Australian B.—P. macrura, Gould.
Port Moresby B.—P. moresbyensis, Ramsay.
Raffray's B.—P. rafrayana, Milne-Edw.
Short-nosed B.—P. obesula, Shaw.
Striped B.—P. bougainvillii, Quoy & Gaim.
White-tailed Rabbit B.—P. lesicura. Thomas.
Pig-footed B.—Choeropus castanotis, Gray.
1802. D. Collins, `Account of New South Wales', vol. ii. p. 188 (Bass's Diary at the Derwent, January 1799):
"The bones of small animals, such as opossums, squirrels, kangooroo rats, and bandicoots, were numerous round their deserted fire-places."
1820. W. C. Wentworth, `Description o New South Wales,' p. 3:
"The animals are, the kangaroo, native dog (which is a smaller species of the wolf), the wombat, bandicoot, kangaroo-rat, opossum, flying squirrel, flying fox, etc. etc."
1827. P. Cunningham, `Two Years in New South Wales,' vol. i. p. 316
"The bandicoot is about four times he size of a rat, without a tail, and burrows in the ground or in hollow trees."
1832. Bischoff, `Van Diemen's Land,' vol. ii. p. 28:
"The bandicoot is as large as a rabbit. There are two kinds, the rat and the rabbit bandicoot."
1845. R. Howitt, `Australia,' p. 233:
"The common people are not destitute of what Wordsworth calls `the poetry of common speech,' many of their similes being very forcibly and naturally drawn from objects familiarly in sight and quite Australian. `Poor as a bandicoot,' `miserable as a shag on a rock.'"
Ibid. p. 330:
"There is also a rat-like animal with a swinish face, covered with ruddy coarse hair, that burrows in the ground—the bandicoot. It is said to be very fine eating."
1845. J. O. Balfour, `Sketch of New South Wales,' p. 26:
"The bandicoot is the size of a large rat, of a dark brown colour; it feeds upon roots, and its flesh is good eating. This animal burrows in the ground, and it is from this habit, I suppose, that when hungry, cold, or unhappy, the Australian black says that he is as miserable as the bandicoot."
1890. C. Lumholtz, `Among Cannibals, p. 92:
"The bandicoots are good eating even for Europeans, and in my opinion are the only Australian mammals fit to eat. They resemble pigs, and the flesh tastes somewhat like pork."
1851. J. Henderson, `Excursions in New South Wales,' vol. ii. p.229
"The Bangalo, which is a palm. . . The germ, or roll of young leaves in the centre, and near the top, is eaten by the natives, and occasionally by white men, either raw or boiled. It is of a white colour, sweet and pleasant to the taste."
1884. W. R. Guilfoyle, `Australian Botany,' p. 23:
"The aborigines of New South Wales and Queensland, and occasionally the settlers, eat the young leaves of the cabbage and bangalo palms."
1886. H. C. Kendall, `Poems,' p. 193:
You see he was bred in a bangalow wood,And bangalow pith was the principal foodHis mother served out in her shanty."
1889. J. H. Maiden, `Useful Native Plants,' p. 592:
"Bangalow. . . . The small stems sometimes go under the name of `Moreton Bay Canes.' It is a very ornamental, feathery-leaved palm."
1887. W. S. S. Tyrwhitt, `The New Churn in the Queensland Bush,' p. 61:
"Every third or fourth year on a cattle station, they have what is called a `bang tail muster'; that is to say, all the cattle are brought into the yards, and have the long hairs at the end of the tail cut off square, with knives or sheep-shears. . . The object of it is. . .to find out the actual number of cattle on the run, to compare with the number entered on the station books."
1888. Cassell's `Picturesque Australasia,' vol, iii. p. 175
"The Murrumbidgee was running a `banker'—water right up to the banks."
1890. Lyth, `Golden South,' c. vii. p. 52:
"The driver stated that he had heard the river was `a banker.'"
1896. H. Lawson, `When the World was Wide,' p. 45:
"The creeks were bankers, and the floodWas forty miles round Bourke."
Ibid. p. 100:
"Till the river runs a banker,All stained with yellow mud."
1790. J. White, `Voyage to New South Wales,' p. 221:
"The different species of banksia. The finest new genus hitherto found in New Holland has been destined by Linnaeus, with great propriety, to transmit to posterity the name of Sir Joseph Banks, who first discovered it in his celebrated voyage round the world."
1798. D. Collins, `Account of English Colony in New South Wales,' p. 557:
"A few berries, the yam and fern root, the flowers of the different banksia, and at times some honey, make up the whole vegetable catalogue."
1829. Vigors and Horsfield, `Transactions of the Linnaean Society,' vol. xv. p. 312:
"Scrubs where the different species of banksia are found, the flowers of which I (Mr. Caley) have reason to think afford it sustenance during winter."
1833. C. Sturt, `South Australia,' vol. ii. c. ii. p. 30:
"Some sandhills . . . crowned by banksias."
1845. J. Q. Balfour, `Sketch of New South Wales,' p. 39:
"Many different species of banksia grow in great plenty in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and from the density of their foliage are very ornamental."
1846. L. Leichhardt, quoted by J. D. Lang, `Cooksland,' p. 331:
"The table-land is covered by forests of stringy-bark, of melaleuca-gum, and banksia."
1851. `Quarterly Review,' Dec., p. 40:
"In this they will find an extremely rich collection of bottle-brush-flowered, zigzag-leaved, grey-tinted, odd-looking things, to most eyes rather strange than beautiful, notwithstanding that one of them is named Banksia speciosa. They are the `Botany Bays' of old-fashioned gardeners, but are more in the shrub and tree line than that of flowering pots. Banksia Solandei will remind them to turn to their `Cook's Voyages' when they get home, to read how poor Dr. Solander got up a mountain and was heartily glad to get down again."
1877. F. v. Mueller, `Botanic Teachings,' p. 46:
"The banksias are of historic interest, inasmuch as the genus was dedicated already by the younger Linne in 1781 to Sir Joseph Banks, from whom the Swedish naturalist received branchlets of those species, which in Captain Cook's first voyage more than 100 years ago (1770) were gathered by Banks at Botany-Bay and a few other places of the east coast of Australia."
1887. J. Bonwick, `Romance of the Wool Trade,' p. 228:
"A banksia plain, with its collection of bottle-brush-like-flowers, may have its charms for a botanist, but its well-known sandy ground forbids the hope of good grasses."
1841. John Richardson, `Description of Australian Fish,' p. 73:
"Serranus Rasor.— Tasmanian Barber. . . . The serrature of the preoperculum is the most obvious and general character by which the very numerous Serrani are connected with each other . . . The Van Diemen's Land fish, which is described below, is one of the `Barbers,' a fact which the specific appellation rasor is intended to indicate; the more classical word having been previously appropriated to another species. . . Mr. Lempriere states that it is known locally as the `red perch or shad.'"
[Richardson also says that Cuvier founded a subdivision of the Serrani on the characters of the scales of the jaws, under the name of `les Barbiers,' which had been previously grouped by Block under the title Anthias.]
It is attributed to monotony of diet and to the cloudless climate, with its alternations of extreme cold at night and burning heat by day. It is said to be maintained and aggravated by the irritation of small flies.
1870. E. B. Kennedy, `Four Years in Queensland,' p. 46:
"Land scurvy is better known in Queensland by local names, which do not sound very pleasant, such as `Barcoo rot,' `Kennedy rot,' according to the district it appears in. There is nothing dangerous about it; it is simply the festering of any cut or scratch on one's legs, arms or hands. . . They take months to heal. . . Want of vegetables is assigned as the cause."
1890. C. Lumholtz, `Among Cannibals,' p. 58:
"In Western Queensland people are also subject to bad sores on the hand, called Barcoo-rot."
The name Barcoo is derived from the district traversed by the river Barcoo, or Cooper, in which this complaint and the Barcoo Rot are common. See Dr. E. C. Stirling's `Notes from Central Australia,' in `Intercolonial Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery,' vol. i. p. 218.
1892. J. Fraser, `Aborigines of New South Wales,' p. 70:
"The `come-back' variety (of boomerang) is not a fighting weapon. A dialect name for it is bargan, which word may be explained in our language to mean `bent like a sickle or crescent moon.'"
1847. L. Leichhardt, `Overland Expedition, p. 47:
"The glucking-bird and the barking-owl were heard throughout the moonlight night."
1890. `Melbourne Punch,' Aug. 14, p. 106, col. 3:
"To use a football phrase, they all to a man `barrack' for theBritish Lion."
1893. `The Age,' June 17, p. 15, col. 4:
"[The boy] goes much to football matches, where he barracks, and in a general way makes himself intolerable."
1893. `The Argus,' July 5, p. 9, col. 4, Legislative Assembly:
"Mr. Isaacs:. . . He hoped this `barracking' would not be continued." [Members had been interrupting him.]
1893. `The Herald' (Melbourne), Sept. 9, p. 1, col. 6:
"He noticed with pleasure the decrease of disagreeable barracking by spectators at matches during last season. Good-humoured badinage had prevailed, but the spectators had been very well conducted."
1893. `The Age,' June 27, p. 6, col. 6:
"His worship remarked that the `barracking' that was carried on at football matches was a mean and contemptible system, and was getting worse and worse every day. Actually people were afraid to go to them on account of the conduct of the crowd of `barrackers.' It took all the interest out of the game to see young men acting like a gang of larrikins."
1894. `"The Argus,' Nov. 29, p. 4, col. 9:
"The `most unkindest cut of all' was that the Premier, who was Mr. Rogers's principal barracker during the elections, turned his back upon the prophet and did not deign to discuss his plan."
1890. Rolf Boldrewood, `A Colonial Reformer,' p. 100
"A roomy, roughly-finished building known as the `barracks.' . . . . Three of the numerous bedrooms were tenanted by young men, . . . neophytes, who were gradually assimilating the love of Bush-land."
1845. `Voyage to Port Philip,' p. 40:
"We hook the barracuda fish."
1882. Rev. J. E. Tenison-Woods, `Fishes of New South Wales,' p. 69:
"Sphyrenidae. The first family is the barracudas, or sea-pike." [Footnote]: "This name is no doubt the same as Barracouta and is of Spanish origin. The application of it to Thyrsites atun in the Southern seas was founded on some fancied resemblance to the West Indian fish, which originally bore the name, though of course they are entirely different."
(2) The word is used as a nickname for an inhabitant of Hobart; compare Cornstalk.
1872. G. S. Baden-Powell, `New Homes for the Old Country,' p. 208:
"For sheep, too, is made the `basket fence.' Stakes are driven in, and their pliant `stuff' interwoven, as in a stake hedge in England."
1880. Guenther, `Study of Fishes,' p. 387:
"Histiopterus. . . .The species figured attains to a length of twenty inches, and is esteemed as food. It is known at Melbourne by the names of `Boar-fish' or `Bastard Dorey' (fig.), Histiopterus recurvirostris."
1883. `Royal Commission on the Fisheries of Tasmania,' p. 35:
"The bastard trumpeter (Latris Forsteri). . . .Scarcely inferior to the real trumpeter, and superior to it in abundance all the year round, comes the bastard trumpeter. . . This fish has hitherto been confounded with Latris ciliaris (Forst.); but, although the latter species has been reported as existing in Tasmanian waters, it is most probably a mistake: for the two varieties (the red and the white), found in such abundance here, have the general characters as shown above. . . They must be referred to the Latris Forsteri of Count Castelnau, which appears to be the bastard trumpeter of Victorian waters."