ANIMAL FRIENDS 209 
(if ‘domestic’ it can be called) is the dog... . They have no 
food but the scanty game of the ‘bush’ or forest, such as the 
wallaby and the opossum, and the natural products of the earth. 
. .. It is the custom to speak of the Australians and other savages 
as living in ‘tribes’, But the term is most misleading; for the 
word ‘tribe’ always suggests to us the notion of descent from a 
common ancestor, or, at any rate, of close blood relationship. 
Now there is . . . a most important stage in human progress, in 
which descent from a common ancestor plays a vital part in social 
organization. But the Australian ‘tribe’ does not really play a 
very important part in savage life, at least on its social side. It 
appears to be mainly a group of people engaged in hunting 
together, a co-operative or communal society for the acquisition 
of food-supply. It would really be better to call it the ‘pack’; 
for it far more resembles a hunting than a social organization. 
All its members are entitled to a share in the proceeds of the 
day’s chase, and, quite naturally, they camp and live together.” 
To make a complete list of wild animals that minister to the 
appetite of mankind would be an unnecessary task, but a brief 
summary is given in the sequel. Savages in particular are 
often far from fastidious in such matters. Lord Avebury (in 
Prehistoric Times) compiles from various authorities the following 
somewhat varied bill of fare of these same Australians:—“ The 
food of the Australian savages differs much in different parts of 
the continent. Speaking generally, it may be said to consist of 
various roots, fruits, fungi, shell-fish, frogs, snakes, honey, grubs, 
moths, birds, birds’-eggs, fish, turtles, dogs, kangaroos, and some- 
times of seal and whale. The kangeroo, however, forms only an 
occasional luxury, nor are the natives, so far as I am aware, able 
to kill whales for themselves, but when one is washed on shore it 
is a real godsend to them. Fires are immediately lit to give notice 
of the joyful event. Then they rub themselves all over with 
blubber, and anoint their favourite wives in the same way; after 
which they cut down through the blubber to the beef, which they 
sometimes eat raw, and sometimes broil on pointed sticks. As 
other natives arrive, they ‘fairly eat their way into the whale, and 
you see them climbing in and about the stinking carcase, choosing 
titbits’. For days ‘they remain by the carcase, rubbed from head 
to foot with stinking blubber, gorged to repletion with putrid meat 
—out of temper from indigestion, and therefore engaged in con- 
108 
Vou. IV. 
