150 Stray Feathers. [^^toT 



The Peaceful Dove iCeopelia placida) was rather timid, and 

 visited the nest only four times in three hours. Once in the nest, 

 however, it was an easy matter to secure a ])hotograi)h. Wlien I 

 approached the nest to change plates, the Dove would fly to a 

 near-by rock and try to attract my attention by fluttering about 

 and feigning a wounded wing. — Xokm.ax Chaffer, R.A.(3.U., 

 A\'illoughbv, X.S.W. 



Stray Feathers 



The Name Nullarbor.— The note by Mr. H. W. Ford in the 

 current (July) issue, page h(), interested me, as for some time 1 

 have been trying to get at the root of the matter in regard to 

 the name "Nullarbor." The explanation given by Mr. Ford is 

 the one which has been adopted by the Government in their hand- 

 book to the East-West Line, but I cannot help thinking that 

 there was a previous native name from which the modern one 

 was altered to suit the bare aspect of the great plain. The Rev. 

 John Mathew, of \'ictoria, well-known for his writings on 

 aboriginal matters, told me that in Curr's "The Australian 

 Race," to which he himself contributed, the name is spelt "Xull- 

 abar" ; this work was i»ublished in 1880, and had been in i)rei)a- 

 ration for several years. Curr says, "The W'onunda Meening 

 tribe at Eyre's Sand- Patch give the Xullabar a very bad name, 

 say it is beset with savage dogs, which on one occasion devoured 

 some of their tribe, which entered on it. . . . The Yinla Meening 

 tribe have their particular conception of the horrors of the Xull- 

 abar Plain; it is the haunt of an immense serpent, which has 

 ■devoured all the animals, grass, and trees which are sujtposed, 

 ages back, to have grown on the now barren waste." The 

 country of the first-named tribe was originally settled in 1877. 

 and that of the second (the Eucla district) in 1872, only a few 

 years before the publicatit)n of Curr's volumes, so that he is 

 likely to have had the original name. Mr. Whitlock (in the 

 January, 1922, Emu), after visiting the plain, and making en- 

 (|uiries among the railway staff, favours the native origin of 

 the name, and was told 1)\- a native born in the \icinit} that 

 "P)Oora" means "wind." .\s the Great Plain is notorious for the 

 high winds which race uninterrui)tedly across its wide spaces, 

 we have here a likely clue to the original meaning; whatever 

 "Xulla" may have meant in that district (there is still a "Xulla- 

 W adder" not many miles from Eucla), it is improbable that it 

 "nullitied" the meaning of the latter i)art of the name. I may 

 also mention that Mr. Mathew suggests Olu])a. a Central Aus- 

 tralian term for "wind," as one that might easily have become 

 modified into "Xullabar," as the natives do not distinguish be- 

 tween the sounds of ]) and b, and an initial vowel usually nnplies 

 the elision of a preceding consonant. — H. Stiakt Di'Vi:. I'.Z.S., 

 W . Devonport, Tasmania. 



