Edward Ellis Morris

“ The animals, like the timber, too, are strange. Kangaroo and wallaby are as fond of grass as the sheep, and after a pelican's yawn there are few things funnier to witness than the career of an `old man' kangaroo, with his harem after him, when the approach of a buggy disturbs the family at their afternoon meal. Away they go, the little ones cantering briskly, he in a shaggy gallop, with his long tail stuck out for a balance, and a perpetual see-saw maintained between it and his short front paws, while the hind legs act as a mighty spring under the whole construction. ”

“ A Londoner reading of the crossing of a creek would naturally imagine the scene to be in the immediate neighbourhood of the coast, instead of being perhaps some hundreds of miles in the interior, and would dream of salt water, perriwinkles and sea-weed, when he should be thinking of slimy mud-holes, black snakes and gigantic gum-trees. ”

“ Grass-trees and the brown brake-fern, whips of native cherry, and all the threads and tangle of the earth's green russet vestment hide the feet of trees which lean and lounge between us and the water, their leaf heads tinselled by the light. ”

“ J. O. Balfour, `Sketch of New South Wales,' p. 4:
"The greatest peculiarity in the climate is what is called by colonists a brickfielder. This wind has all the characteristics of a sirocco in miniature . . . . Returning home, he discovers that the house is full of sand; that the brickfielder has even insinuated itself between the leaves of his books; at dinner he will probably find that his favourite fish has been spoiled by the brickfielder. Nor is this all; for on retiring to rest he will find that the brickfielder has intruded even within the precincts of his musquito curtains." ”

“ When we hear railing at slang phrases, at Americanisms, some of which are admirably expressive, at various flowers of colonial speech, and at words woven into the texture of our speech by those who live far away from London and from Oxford, and who on the outskirts of the British Empire are brought into contact with new natural objects that need new names, we may think for our comfort on the undoubted fact that the noble and dignified language of the poets, authors and preachers, grouped around Lewis XIV., sprang from debased Latin. ”

“ The dingo of northern Australia can be distinguished from his brother of the south by his somewhat smaller size and courageous bearing. He always carries his tail curled over his back, and is ever ready to attack any one or anything; whilst the southern dingo carries his tail low, slinks along like a fox, and is easily frightened. The pure dingo, which is now exceedingly rare in a wild state, partly through the agency of poison, but still more from the admixture of foreign breeds, is unable to bark, and can only express its feelings in long-drawn weird howls. ”

“ I believe it was Charles Lamb who said, the peculiarity of the small fore-feet of the Kangaroo seemed to be for picking pockets; but he forgot to mention the singularity characterizing the animal kingdom of Australia, that they have pockets to be picked, being mostly marsupial. We have often amused ourselves by throwing sugar or bread into the pouch of the Kangaroo, and seen with what delight the animal has picked its own pocket, and devoured the contents, searching its bag, like a Highlander his sporran, for more. ”

“ The foliage of many of the large trees is quite destroyed by the crimson flowering rata, the king of parasites, which having raised itself into the upper air by the aid of some unhappy pine, insinuates its fatal coils about its patron, until it has absorbed trunk and branch into itself, and so gathered sufficient strength to stand unaided like the chief of forest trees, flaunting in crimson splendour. ”

“ However pleasant the change of temperature may be it is no mere pastime to be caught in a `southerly buster,' but the drifting rain which always follows soon sets matters right, allays the dust, and then follows the calm fresh bracing wind which is the more delightful by contrast with the misery through which one has passed for three long dreary days and nights. ”

“ The stock-whip, with a handle about half a yard long and a thong of three yards long, of plaited bullock-hide, is a terrible instrument in the hands of a practised stockman. Its sound is the note of terror to the cattle; it is like the report of a blunderbuss, and the stockman at full gallop will hit any given spot on the beast that he is within reach of, and cut the piece away through the thickest hide that bull or bison ever wore. ”

“ The kind of dog used for coursing the kangaroo is generally a cross between the greyhound and the mastiff or sheep-dog; but in a climate like New South Wales they have, to use the common phrase, too much lumber about them. The true bred greyhound is the most useful dog: he has more wind; he ascends the hills with more ease; and will run double the number of courses in a day. He has more bottom in running, and if he has less ferocity when he comes up with an `old man,' so much the better, as he exposes himself the less, and lives to afford sport another day. ”

“ The scrubbers, unseen of men, would stay in their fastnesses all day chewing the cud they had laid up the night before, and when the sun went down and the strident laugh of the giant kingfisher had given place to the insidious air-piercing note of the large-mouthed podargus, the scrub would give up its inhabitants. ”

“ But in New Zealand Maori is much more widely used in the matter of vocabulary than the speech of the aborigines is in Australia, or at any rate in the more settled parts of Australia; and the Maori is in a purer form. Though some words and names have been ridiculously corrupted, the language of those who dwell in the bush in New Zealand can hardly be called Pigeon English, and that is the right name for the "lingo" used in Queensland and Western Australia, which, only partly represented in this book, is indeed a falling away from the language of Bacon and Shakspeare. ”

“ In the mountain scrubs there grows a very luxuriant kind of palm (Calamus Australis) , whose stem of a finger's thickness, like the East Indian Rotang-palm, creeps through the woods for hundreds of feet, twining round trees in its path, and at times forming so dense a wattle that it is impossible to get through it. The stem and leaves are studded with the sharpest thorns, which continually cling to you and draw blood, hence its not very polite name of lawyer-palm. ”

“ People in Melbourne and Adelaide, catching at the word brickfielder as a name for a dusty wind, and knowing nothing of the origin of the name, would readily adapt it to their own severe hot north winds, which raise clouds of dust all day, and are described accurately as being `like a blast from a furnace,' or `the breath of a brick-kiln.' Even a younger generation in Sydney, having received the word by colloquial tradition, losing its origin, and knowing nothing of the old brickfields, might apply the word to a hot blast in the same way. ”

“ The name Acacia, derived from the Greek, and indicative of a thorny plant, was already bestowed by the ancient naturalist and physician Dioscorides on a Gum-Arabic yielding North-African Acacia not dissimilar to some Australian species. This generic name is so familiarly known, that the appellation `Wattle' might well be dispensed with. Indeed the name Acacia is in full use in works on travels and in many popular writings for the numerous Australian species . . . Few of any genera of plants contain more species than Acacia, and in Australia it is the richest of all ”

“ The various species are known as Leaf-insects, Walking leaves, Stick-caterpillars, Walking-sticks, Spectres, etc., from the extraordinary illusion with which they counterfeit the appearance of the twigs, branches, or leaves of the vegetation on which they settle. Some have legs only, which they can hold crooked in the air to imitate twigs; others have wings like delicate leaves, or they are brilliant green and covered with thorns. They imitate not only the colour and form of the plant, but its action or motion when swayed slightly by the wind. ”

“ A boundary-rider is not a `boss' in the Bush, but he is an important personage in his way. He sees that the sheep in his paddock draw to the water, that there is water for them to draw to, and that the fences and gates are in order. He is paid fairly, and has a fine, free, solitary life. ”

“ Burnell as a name for their interesting Dictionary of Anglo-Indian words. The law is well recognised, though it has lacked the name, such as I now venture to give it. When a word comes from a foreign language, those who use it, not understanding it properly, give a twist to the word or to some part of it from the hospitable desire to make the word at home in its new quarters, no regard, however, being paid to the sense. The most familiar instance in English is crayfish from the French ecrevisse, though it is well known that a crayfish is not a fish at all. ”

“ The southern cross is a very great delusion. It isn't a cross. It is a kite, a kite upside down, an irregular kite upside down, with only three respectable stars and one very poor and very much out of place. Near it, however, is a truly mysterious and interesting object called the coal sack: it is a black patch in the sky distinctly darker than all the rest of the heavens. No star shines through it. ”

“ J. E. Tenison-Woods, `Fish of New South Wales,' p. 39:
"The genus Pagrus, or as we term it in the vernacular, `schnapper,' a word of Dutch origin . . . The schnapper or snapper. The schnapper (Pagrus unicolor, Cuv. and Val.) is the most valuable of Australian fishes, not for its superior excellence . . . but for the abundant and regular supply . . . At a still greater age the schnapper seems to cease to school and becomes what is known as the `native' and `rock-native,' a solitary and sometimes enormously large fish." ”

“ One of the very best of the grasses found in the hot regions of Central Australia is the Australian millet, Panicum decompositum. It is extremely hardy and stands the hot dry summers of the north very well; it is nutritious, and cattle and sheep are fond of it. It seeds freely, was used by the aborigines for making a sort of cake, and was the only grain stored by them. This grass thrives in poor soil, and starts into rapid growth with the first autumn rains. ”

“ It is the largest carnivorous marsupial extant, and is so much like a wolf in appearance that it well deserves its vernacular name of Wolf, though now-a-days it is generally called Tiger. There is only one species, Thylacinus cynocephalus, and the settlers have nearly exterminated it, on account of its fierce predatory habits and the damage it inflicts on their flocks. The Tasmanian Government pays L1 for every one destroyed. The Van Diemen's Land Company in the North-West of the Island employs a man on one of its runs who is called the "tiger-catcher." ”

“ Whilst in New Zealand careful attention has been paid by competent scholars to the musical Maori language, it can hardly be claimed that the Australian family of languages has ever been scientifically studied, though there is a heap of printed material—small grammars and lists of words—rudis indigestaque moles. There is no doubt that the vocabularies used in different parts of Australia and Tasmania varied greatly, and equally little doubt that the languages, in structure and perhaps originally in vocabulary, were more or less connected. ”

“ The flat and, rarely, hilly plains . . . are covered chiefly with thickets and `scrub' of social plants, generally with hard and prickly leaves. This `scrub,' which is quite a feature of the Australian interior, is chiefly formed of a bushy Eucalyptus, which grows somewhat like our osiers to a height of 8 or 10 feet, and often so densely covers the ground as to be quite impenetrable. This is the `Mallee scrub' of the explorers; while the still more dreaded `Mulga scrub' consists of species of prickly acacia, which tear the clothes and wound the flesh of the traveller. ”

“ The question of the identification of fossil plants is always a difficult one, but as Mr. Thomson announces that he has obtained fruit capsules and leaves there can be but little doubt as to the correctness of his determinations. Hitherto the genus has been regarded as Australian only, and about 100 species are known, of which no less than 65 are West Australian. It would seem then that the Hakeas had obtained a footing in Eastern Australia before the connection with New Zealand had disappeared, and that probably the genus is a far older one than had been anticipated. ”

“ For it was not the classical Latin that is the origin of French, but the language of the soldiers and the camp-followers who talked slang and picked words up from every quarter. English has certainly a richer vocabulary, a finer variety of words to express delicate distinctions of meaning, than any language that is or that ever was spoken: and this is because it has always been hospitable in the reception of new words. It is too late a day to close the doors against new words. ”

“ Another very interesting group of birds are the large dull colonial parrots of the genus Nestor, called kea or kaka by the natives from their peculiar cries. Their natural food is berries . . . but of late years the kea (Nestor notabilis) , a mountain species found only in the South Island, has developed a curious liking for meat, and now attacks living sheep, settling on their backs and tearing away the skin and flesh to get at the kidney fat. ”

“ Numbers of men who came to be known by the class name of `sundowners,' from their habit of straggling up at fall of evening with the stereotyped appeal for work; and work being at that hour impossible, they were sent to the travellers' hut for shelter and to the storekeeper or cook for the pannikin of flour, the bit of mutton, the sufficiency of tea for a brew, which made up a ration. ”