148 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



inches wide had been cut with a tomahawk through the bark, 

 and extending from the ground to the height of about twenty- 

 live feet, representing a tree which had been struck by lightning.* 



On a box tree twenty yards from the goonaba a carpet snake, 

 nine-feet four inches long, with its head towards the ground, was 

 cut through the bark ; and on a forked box tree near the 

 porcupine, an iguana five feet two inches long was formed in 

 the same way. Between the iguana tree and the goomee, a 

 centipede three feet one inch long, with eighteen legs, was 

 chopped through the bark into the wood of a box tree near the 

 track. Below it were some diamond-shaped devices cut in the 

 same manner. 



This Bora ground, although containing all the principal figures 

 necessary, was neither so extensive nor so richly ornamented as 

 others I have seen. From circle to circle was only 270 yards, 

 and the space containing the ground carving and marked trees was 

 about 175 yards by a width of from fifteen to twenty feet. The 

 old men explained to me that this was owing to their having been 

 shorthanded when preparing the ground, which was an entirely 

 new site. At the Gundabloui Bora described by me in the 

 Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, Vol. 

 XXIV., pp. 411-427, the distance between the circles was twenty- 

 three chains, the length of the carved ground being 320 yards, and 

 its width forty feet. 



Old blackfellows have told me that when they were boys Bora 

 grounds were much larger and more elaborately embellished than 

 they are at the present time. I once inspected an old disused 

 Kamilaroi Bora ground on the Moogan Run, Queensland, where 

 the distance from circle to circle was more than a mile. The 

 large ring was thirty-five yards in diameter, and was still easily 

 traceable on the ground ; my guide, who was an old blackfellow, 

 stating that when he was a young man the height of the wall was 

 "up to his knee." The base of the wall was about eighteen 

 inches when new. There were, of course, then no traces of the 

 figures which had been raised or graven upon the turf, but 

 judging by appearances, and what my guide told me, they must 

 have extended about a mile, and their width would probably be 



* A tree struck by lightning is represented in plate xxvi., fig. 13, Journ. Anthrop. 

 Inst., xxv., 300. 



