10 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
two, made their first acquaintance with civilisation, having just arrived from an 
unsettled district to the north of King’s Sound to participate with previously engaged 
kinsmen, in the earnings and perquisites obtainable for their assistance in the 
Béche-de-Mer fishery. 
The sartorial accessories of the North Australian aboriginal are not such as 
to demand elaborate description. In addition to his “birthday suit,” a polished, 
variously engraved mother-of-pearl shell, Meleagrina, secured round his waist by a 
girdle of twisted human hair, probably that of his wife or wives, a stick thrust 
skewer-wise through the nasal septum, and on festal occasions, a little paint, represents 
the alpha and the omega of his not very extensive wardrobe. Some of these shell 
aprons, which may be regarded as an artistic antipodeal adaptation of the classic 
fig-leaf, are somewhat elaborate in their pattern of ornamentation. Among the 
examples of these shell aprons, included 
in the photographic figures reproduced 
on this page, the one on the top left 
hand corner might suggest, to the en- 
thusiastic student of the dawn of art, 
the prototype of the decorative pattern 
known as the “Grecian Key.” It is a 
trite saying that extremes meet! On 
carefully examining between the lines in 
this particular example, it will be ob- 
served that small triradiate characters 
are scattered here and there near the 
lower edge. These must not be inter- 
preted as the equivalent of the cuneiform 
symbols of Ancient Nineveh, excepting 
to the same extent as the broad arrow 
of the British Government may be trace- 
able to the same source. As a matter 
L of fact, these particular shell ornaments 
W. Saville-Kent, Photo. 
CARVED BAOBAB NUT AND SHELL APRONS, WITH HUMAN HAIR GIRDLES, 
KIMBERLEY DISTRICT, WESTERN AUSTRALIA. ONE-FIFTH NAT. SIZE. 
were obtained from natives belonging to 
the settled district of Roebuck Bay, who 
have consequently added this, to them, white man’s totem mark, to their own 
repertoire. The most conspicuous character of these shell etchings, reproduced also 
