COOKING AND FOOD. 19 



snipes, and a great many kinds of sea fowls. The pelican and its eggs are 

 considered too fishy to eat. 



The tortoise and its eggs are much sought after. Snakes are considered 

 good food, but are not eaten if they have bitten themselves, as the natives 

 believe that the poison, when taken into the stomach, is as deadly as when 

 injected into the blood by a bite. Lizards and frogs of all sorts are cooked and 

 eaten. 



Of fish, the eel is the favourite ; but, besides it, there are many varieties of 

 fish in the lakes and rivers, which are eaten by the natives. One in particular, 

 called the tuupuurn, is reckoned a very great delicacy. It is caught plentifully, 

 with the aid of long baskets, in the mouths of rivei'S during its passage to and 

 from the sea, of which migration the natives are well aware. 



Vast quantities of moUusca must have been consumed from very remote 

 periods by the natives occupying the country adjoining the sea coast ; for opposite 

 every reef of rocks affording shelter to shell fish, immense beds of shells of 

 various sorts are to be seen in the sand-hills, in layers intermixed with pieces of 

 charred wood, a.shes, and stones having the marks of fire on them. In some 

 places where the action of the wind and spray has caused the hummocks to slip 

 down into the sea, the layers of shells are exposed to a great depth ; and, as they 

 could not have been placed in their present positions by natural means along with 

 pieces of burnt trap-rock, charred wood, and ashes, there is no doubt that they are 

 of similar origin with the aboriginal deposits found on the east coast of Scotland 

 and sea shores of Denmark and Holland, called ' middens ' by the Scotch and 

 ' moedens ' by the Dutch. These immense mounds of shells being met with only 

 near the sea, and nowhere in the interior, leads to the conclusion that the aborigines 

 who fed on the mollusca and fish, never left the shore during the fishing season ; 

 and that, if they came from the interior, they never carried away any shell-fish 

 with them, otherwise sea shells would be found in abundance at their old camping 

 places in the bush, at a distance from the sea. An ancient deposit of marine shells, 

 having every appearance of an aboriginal midden, was some years ago exposed on 

 the east bank of the YaiTa-Yarra River, near the Falls Bridge. At this spot a reef of 

 rocks — which has been since partially removed — -kept back the tide, and preserved 

 the water sufficiently fresh for domestic purposes. This, no doubt, enabled the 

 natives to camp there for fishing purposes ; and hence the large deposit of shells 

 at this spot. 



Of roots and vegetables they have plenty. The mum-ang, which somewhat 



