angaroo, the musk duck, the white crane, the
bandicoot, the wild dog, two kinds of fish (toor-rue and toitchock), the
shag (yarrilla), the water mole (neewitke), the ground grub (ronk), the
vegetable food eaten by the emu (war-itch), etc. When menstruating, they
are not allowed to eat fish of any kind, or to go near the water at all;
it being one of their superstitions, that if a female, in that state,
goes near the water, no success can be expected by the men in fishing.
Fish that are taken by the men diving under the cliffs, and which are
always females about to deposit their spawn, are also forbidden to the
native women.

Old men and women are allowed to eat anything, and there are very few
things that they do not eat. Among the few exceptions are a species of
toad, and the young of the wombat, when very small, and before the hair
is well developed.

Chapter IV.

PROPERTY IN LAND--DWELLINGS--WEAPONS--IMPLEMENTS--GOVERNMENT--CUSTOMS--
SOCIAL RELATIONS--MARRIAGE--NOMENCLATURE.

It has generally been imagined, but with great injustice, as well as
incorrectness, that the natives have no idea of property in land, or
proprietary rights connected with it. Nothing can be further from the
truth than this assumption, although men of high character and standing,
and who are otherwise benevolently disposed towards the natives, have
distinctly denied this right, and maintained that the natives were not
entitled to have any choice of land reserved for them out of their own
possessions, and in their respective districts.

In the public journals of the colonies the question has often been
discussed, and the same unjust assertion put forth. A single quotation
will be sufficient to illustrate the spirit prevailing upon this point.
It is from a letter on the subject published in South Australian Register
of the 1st August, 1840:--"It would be difficult to define what
conceivable proprietary rights were ever enjoyed by the miserable savages
of South Australia, who never cultivated an inch of the soil, and whose
ideas of the value of its direct produce never extended beyond obtaining
a sufficiency of pieces of white chalk and red ochre wherewith to bedaub
their bodies for their filthy corrobberies." Many similar proofs might be
given of the general feeling entertained respecting the rights of the
Aborigines, arising out of their original possession of the soil. It is a
feeling, however, that can only have originated in a