Austral English Part 45
1886. C. H. Kendall, `Poems,' p. 207:
"At punching oxen you may guess There's nothing out can camp him.
He has, in fact, the slouch and dress, Which bullock-driver stamp him."
.
(q.v.).
1889. J. H. Maiden, `Useful Native Plants,' p. 44:
"Pig-faces. It was the canajong of the Tasmanian aboriginal. The fleshy fruit is eaten raw by the aborigines: the leaves are eaten baked."
).
1888. W. L. Buller, `Birds of New Zealand,' vol. i. p. 56:
"c.l.i.tonyx Ochrocephala. Yellow-head. `Canary' of the colonists."
(2) Slang for a convict. See quotations. As early as 1673, `canary-bird' was thieves' English for a gaol-bird.
1827. P. Cunningham, `Two Years in New South Wales,' vol. ii.
p. 117:
"Convicts of but recent migration are facetiously known by the name of canaries, by reason of the yellow plumage in which they are fledged at the period of landing."
1870. T. H. Braim, `New Homes,' c. ii. p. 72:
"The prisoners were dressed in yellow-hence called `canary birds.'"
1890. Rolf Boldrewood, `Colonial Reformer,' c. vi. p. 49:
"Can't you get your canaries off the track here for about a quarter of an hour, and let my mob of cattle pa.s.s ?"
is confined to Australia and the Polynesian Islands.
1883. F. M. Bailey, `Synopsis of Queensland Flora,' p. 472:
"Candle-nut. The kernels when dried and stuck on a reed are used by the Polynesian Islanders as a subst.i.tute for candles, and as an article of food in New Georgia. These nuts resemble walnuts somewhat in size and taste. When pressed they yield a large proportion of pure palatable oil, used as a drying-oil for paint, and known as country walnut-oil and artists' oil."
(q.v.).
.
1852. Mrs. Meredith, `My Home in Tasmania,' vol. i. p. 114, [Footnote]:
"The `Cape Barren Goose' frequents the island from which it takes its name, and others in the Straits. It is about the same size as a common goose, the plumage a handsome mottled brown and gray, somewhat owl-like in character."
[Cape Barren Island is in Ba.s.s Strait, between Flinders Island and Tasmania. Banks Strait flows between Cape Barren Island and Tasmania. The easternmost point on the island is called Cape Barren.]
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1834. Ross, `Van Diemen's Land Annual,' p. 134:
"Leptospermum lanigerum, h.o.a.ry tea-tree; Acacia decurrens, black wattle; Correa alba, Cape Barren tea. The leaves of these have been used as subst.i.tutes for tea in the colony."
.
. In Australia it is as in quotation below. See `Globe Encyclopaedia,' 1877 (s.v.).
1878. W. R. Guilfoyle, `First Book of Australian Botany,'
p. 60:
"Cape Weed. Cryptostemma Calendulaceum. (Natural Order, Compositae.) This weed, which has proved such a pest in many parts of Victoria, was introduced from the Cape of Good Hope, as a fodder plant. It is an annual, flowering in the spring, and giving a bright golden hue to the fields.
It proves destructive to other herbs and gra.s.ses, and though it affords a nutritious food for stock in the spring, it dies off in the middle of summer, after ripening its seeds, leaving the fields quite bare."
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The Karum of the Queensland aboriginals. The fruit is one to two inches in diameter. Called also Grey Plum or Native Pomegranate. The name is also given to Capparis Mitch.e.l.li, Lindl. The European caper is Capparis spinosa, Linn.
1894. `Melbourne Museum Catalogue, Economic Woods,' p. 10:
"Native Caper Tree or Wild Pomegranate. Natural Order, Capparideae. Found in the Mallee Scrub. A small tree.
The wood is whitish, hard, close-grained, and suitable for engraving, carving, and similar purposes. Strongly resembles lancewood."
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1879. W. Quin, `New Zealand Country Journal,' vol. iii. p. 55:
"Many a rare old tusker finds a home in the mountain gorges.
The immense tusks at Brooksdale attest the size of the wild boars or Captain Cooks, as the patriarchs are generally named."
1894. E. Wakefield, `New Zealand after Fifty Years,' p. 85:
"The leanness and roughness of the wild pig gives it quite a different appearance from the domesticated variety; and hence a gaunt, ill-shaped, or sorry-looking pig is everywhere called in derision a `Captain Cook.'"
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(2) A kind of water worm that eats into timber between high and low water on a tidal river.
. For the Australian tree of this name, see quotation.
1890. C. Lumholtz,' Among Cannibals,' p. 96:
"The Australian cardamom tree." [Footnote]: "This is a fict.i.tious name, as are the names of many Australian plants and animals. The tree belongs to the nutmeg family, and its real name is Myristica insipida. The name owes its existence to the similarity of the fruit to the real cardamom.
But the fruit of the Myristica has not so strong and pleasant an odour as the real cardamom, and hence the tree is called insipida."
, says Guenther, may be readily recognized by their thickened undivided lower pectoral rays, which in some are evidently auxiliary organs of locomotion, in others, probably, organs of touch.
(q.v.)