302 THREE ADDITIONAL TYPES OF WOMERAH. 



It would be interesting to ascei'tain how far south along the 

 eastern coast shell-mounted womerahs extend. We know that 

 they have been observed as low as the Herbert River, off Hinchin- 

 brook Island, but White mentions in his " Journal of a Voyage 

 to N. S. Wales''"^ that our Botany Bay natives ''had a stick, 

 with a shell at the end, used by them in throwing their weapons." 

 It is hardly likely that this could be a womerah after the type of 

 the J/e/o-mounted weapon, but was more probably only a piece of 

 shell placed at the extreme end and used as a scraper, after the 

 manner of some of the womerahs from Western Australia and 

 elsewhere. 



The third womerah is of an essentially different type both in 

 shape and mounting. Ft consists of a long thin heavy stick, with 

 the usual spear peg at the distal end, but destitute of any gum- 

 cement or supplementary object at the proximal. It is much 

 thicker than either modification of the Lath-like Womerah. The 

 upper edge rises excentrically into a bridge, evidently for the 

 support of the spear as foreshadowed in Smyth's illustration 

 {ireviously referred to. Irrespective of the bridge, the womerah 

 tapers from the distal to the proximal end, the Litter terminating 

 in an obtuse point. The spear-peg is small, short, very obliquely 

 set, and fixed on with a semi-transparent rosin-like gum, having 

 the appearance of gum-arabic and quite different from the ordinary 

 gum-cement, and studded with the red and blnck-tipped seeds of 

 A brus precatorius. 



This womerah is two feet eight inches long, the breadth at the 

 proximal end being seven-eighths, at the centre one inch and five- 

 eighths, and at the distal end one and one-eighth inches respectively. 

 It is relatively heavier in comparison to its size than either of the 

 two other weapons now described. 



The three weapons were obtained by Mr. Harry Stockdale in 

 the Cape York Peninsula, fifty miles south of the Cape. 



* 4to, London, 1790. 



