460 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
. Blyth, of Russell, who has kindly given me permission to bring it before 
you. He informed me that he had noticed that the leaves of the Hucalypti, 
when blown off the trees, often acquire the whirling flight and returning 
action of the boomerang, the leaves tending to return and fall upon the 
. ground perpendicularly below the starting-point of their course. 
The correctness of this observation I have repeatedly verified; and this 
character of the course of the falling leaf, when taken into consideration 
with the striking similarity in form between the boomerang and the leaves - 
of the blue-gum is, I submit, complete evidence that the origin of the boo- 
merang was due to imitation of the form and flight of the leaves. The 
absence of the boomerang in other countries is thus accounted for, since the 
Eucalypti are essentially Australian, the bush throughout the greater portion 
of the continent being chiefly composed of them, while comparatively few 
are to be found elsewhere. 
That the Australians had a throwing missile previous to the develop- 
ment of the boomerang form, is rendered probable when one considers that 
a strong resemblance in typical character appears to exist between the 
Australian and the Indian Dekhan tribes, and possibly the ancient Egyp- 
tians. Colonel Lane Fox has grouped them together in his classification of 
weapons ; and Prof. Huxley had previously taken these races to comprise 
the lowest forms of his Zeitrichi, or smooth-haired people, since they all 
possess long prognathous skulls, with well-developed brow ridges, dark 
eyes and black hair. The Dekhan, or aboriginal tribes of India, had a 
missile which they whirled in the manner of boomerangs to bring down 
game. The rudest kind is described by Sir Walter Elliot as being found 
in the South Mahratta district, and were merely crooked sticks, the most 
developed form being the “ Katuria” of the Kules of Gujerat, a weapon 
resembling the boomerang in shape, and in being an edged flat missile pre- 
serving its plane of rotation, but being too thick to swerve or return. 
The Egyptian fowler used a throwing cudgel. (See E. B. Tylor's 
“ Early History of Mankind.") | 
These forms of weapons in races allied to the Australians would seem to 
indicate that the boomerang had been developed 
N from them to its present form by the Australians 
often witnessing the peculiar course of the Huca- 
lypti leaves, all savage races being keenly alive to 
the improvement of their weapons. In the dia- 
gram is shown the form of the boomerang compared 
with some leaves of the Eucalyptus globulus. The 
curved sectional form, essential to the soaring flight of both boomerang and 
leaf, is present in each. 
— 
