BY FRITZ NOETLING, M.A., Ph.D., ETC. 285 



that could hardly be more different than the great kan- 

 garoo and the seal, by one and the same name. The word 

 "naweetya" gave me, however, a clue; it is unquestion- 

 ably the same word as " noattye." Now, we know that 

 the negative is expressed by the word *' noia " or 

 " noattye," and I think it therefore very probable that 

 Milligan's informant when questioned as to the names of 

 these animals simply replied naweetye(a), " I do not 

 know." 



From the above list it further appears that the Abo- 

 rigines, at least the southern and northern tribes, had no 

 distinguishing names for the Great Forester kangaroo 

 and the wallaby. Both were tara or tara-na. Now, I do 

 not think it very probabk that if they did not distinguish 

 between these two animals whose habitat is widely dif- 

 ferent (i), they would have distinguished the Brush 

 kangaroo, which is much closer related to the Forester, 

 from the latter animal. 



Another instance will still more emphasise the dis- 

 crepancies of Milligan's vocabulary. According to it the 

 word for fern tree is in the eastern dialect " nowarra-com- 

 minea," but the same tribe calls the small hawk (Astur 

 approximans) " nowarra-nenah." I fail to discover any- 

 thing in common between a fern tree and a small hawk; 

 if both had any common quality the word '' nowarra " 

 might be accounted for; but as there could be hardly any- 

 thing more different than a bird and a fern tree, the 

 peculiar similarity of these words had first to be explained 

 before we could accept them as correct (2). 



(i) The forester inhabits the open eucalyptus forest, while 

 the wallaby lives in the dense scrub of the valleys. 



(2) There are some other remarkable anomalies. According 

 to Milligan the southern tribes called the large owl (Strix cas- 

 tanops) " rokatah," from which the word cockatoo is unques- 

 tionably derived. The birds the Europeans call by this name 

 were called " weeanoobryna " or " oiynoobryna " by the eastern 

 tribes, and " 'nghara " or " oorah " by the southern tribes. 



The popular word for Spheniscus minor, the penguin, is ap- 

 parently derived from " teng-wynne," the word in the eastern 

 dialect for this bird. The most curious coincidence exists, ho\v- 

 ever, in the words for dog (spaniel) and gosling. The dog is 

 " kaeeta," and the gosling " kaeeta-boena." _As we know for 

 certain that there were no indigenous dogs in Tasmania, and 

 that the Aborigines became acquainted with this useful animal 

 only through the Europeans, the mental process which brought 

 a dog and a gosling together is rather a curious one. 



