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TWO ORNATE BOOMERANGS FROM NORTH 

 QUEENSLAND. 



By R. Ethbridge, Junr , Curator of the Australian 



Museum, Sydney. 



(Plate XI.) 



I am indebted to Mr. J. A. Boyd, of Ripple Creek, near 

 Ingham, North Queensland, for an opportunity of describing two 

 additional carved Boomerangs. Mr. Boyd informs me that the 

 weapons were procured from the Herbert River Blacks, who 

 obtain them from the natives living farther south, near Towns- 

 ville. Both are similar in size and shape, with plain obtusely 

 pointed and non-emarginated apices, slightly convex on the 

 sculptured face, practically flat on the reverse, showing only tool 

 or gouge marks, whilst the former, or obverse, is smooth and 

 polished like similar weapons in general. The length around the 

 curve is two feet three inches; across from apex to apex two feet 

 one inch; the width two, and two and a quarter inches respec- 

 tively; and the weight of each is ten and a half ounces. 



The wider of the two (fig. 1) bears on the obverse a line of 

 half ovals along each margin, twelve on the convex, and eleven 

 on the concave. The centre of the boomerang is ornamented by 

 two lines of elongated ovals following the curve of the weapon, 

 the row contiguous to the convex edge containing twelve, and 

 that on the concave margin thirteen, ovals. All the ovals 

 are incised with oblique grooves, and each re-entering angle along 

 the convex edge bears two very obliquely placed nicks or notches. 

 The apices bear v-shaped grooves reversed, two at one end, three 

 at the other. 



