•460 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Blyfch, of Eussell, who has kindly given me permission to bring it before 

 you. He informed me that he had noticed that the leaves of the Eucalypti, 

 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 

 from them to its present form by the Australians 

 often witnessing the peculiar course of the Euca- 

 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. 



