28 Of the Checks to Populatioti in the Bk. i. 



branches, which is generally the case in thick 

 forests, this is a process of great labour, and is 

 effected by cutting a notch with their stone 

 hatchets for each foot successively, while their 

 left arm embraces the tree. Trees were observed 

 notched in this manner to the height, of eighty 

 feet before the first branch, where the hungry 

 savage could hope to meet with any reward for 

 so much toil.* 



The woods, exclusive of the animals occasion- 

 ally found in them, afford but little sustenance. 

 A few berries, the yam, the fern root, and the 

 flowers of the different banksias, make up the 

 whole of the vegetable catalogue. f 



A native with his child, surprised on the banks 

 of the Hawksbury river by some of our colonists, 

 launched his canoe in a hurry, and left behind him 

 a specimen of his food, and of the delicacy of his 

 stomach. From a piece of water-soaked wood, 

 full of holes, he had been extracting and eating 

 a large worm. The smell both of the worm and 

 its habitation was in the highest degree offensive. 

 These worms, in the language of the country, are 

 called Cah-bro ; and a tribe of natives dwelling 

 inland, from the circumstance of eating these 

 loathsome worms, is named Cah-brogal. The 

 wood-natives also make a paste formed of the fern 

 root and the large and small ants, bruised to- 



* Collins's Account of New South Wales, Appendix, p. 549. 

 4to. 



t Id. Appen. p. 557. 4to. 



