334 "widow's cap" of the Australian aborigines, 



the hair had been confined with a net, of which the impression 

 and some hairs remained behind." During his "Third Expedi- 

 tion" in 1836, Sir Thomas again met with these caps near the 

 confluence of the Murray and Darling Rivers, and speaking of 

 the graves there says,* "On them lay the same singular casts of 

 the head, which we had seen only at Fort Bourke." Confirma- 

 tion of these statements was afibrded by Governor E.J. Eyre, for 

 many years Protector of the Aborigines in South Australia, who 

 found t the practice a common one amongst the natives along the 

 Murray River, at the same time remarking that the coverings 

 were moulded to the women's heads over a piece of net-work. 

 The explanation given by Mitchell and Eyre became perfectly 

 intelligible on the appearance of Mr. G. F. Angas' beautiful 

 work on S. Australia,! wherein a woman is depicted attired in a 

 widow's cap, and otherwise whitened. 



I have been favoured by Sir Joseph Abbott with the loan of a 

 very excellent specimen of these head coverings. Mr. Charles 

 Kilgour has presented to the Trustees another remarkable 

 example, and with the aid of a third already in the Australian 

 Museum I have been able to compile the following notes. 



Sir Joseph Abbott's specimen (Plates xxvi.-xxvii. ) is of an oval 

 shape, ten inches long, eight inches wide, and five and a half inches 

 high, the concave intei'ior having a depth of four and a quarter 

 inches, thus giving to the material of the crown a solid thickness 

 of one and a quarter inches. The cap may be described in general 

 terms as dish-cover-shaped, with the edges scarcel}^ curved 

 inwards, and wider at one end than at the other; the former I 

 take to be the posterior. The exterior is comparatively smooth. 

 At two inches from the narrow or anterior end, the opening is 

 four and a quarter inches wide, and at the same distance from 

 the posterior end the transverse measurement of the ojDening is 

 five and a half inches, the length of the entire aperture 



* Ibid., ii. p. 112. 

 t Jouru. Exped. Discovery hi Central Austr£|,lia, 1845, ii. p. 354, pi. 

 X S. Australia Illustrated, 1846, pi. 51, f. 20. 



