1906-7.] Notes on Aboriginals of South Australia. 57 
and an Eskimo.* Sir John Lubbock had observed the same thing in pre- 
historic Danish skulls, indicating, as he said, a peculiar manner of eating. 
In his recent work, in which the Australian skulls in the Anthropological 
Museum at Cambridge are described, Duckworth discusses this question, 
like all other writers, from the point of view of dried skulls, and finds the 
evidence somewhat conflicting. 
It does not seem to have struck any observer to make an examination, 
or a series of examinations, of the living subject, although one would have 
thought this essential to the proper investigation of the subject. Having 
read the latest contributions on this matter while in the territory, I made 
a point of examining a large number of aboriginals of various tribes and 
a number and variety of half-castes. The following is the result : — 
In many tribes I examined, I found that nearly all the natives bite 
“ flush.” A few, however, overlap with the upper jaw, and a few with the 
lower — a native of Port Keats had the lower slightly overlapping. A 
native of Borroloola had the upper overlapping, but he was said to have a 
mixture of Macassar blood. A woman from Brock’s Creek had the upper 
very much overlapping, but the lower was so small as to appear to be 
deformed. I examined three Port Essington “boys.” The first had a 
European father and an aboriginal mother; the second a West Indian 
father and an aboriginal mother; the third a European father and an 
aboriginal mother. All three “ bite flush.” There is said to be a good 
deal of Malay blood among the natives there as elsewhere on the coast. 
A half-caste woman whom I examined bit flush, and her child by a 
half-caste father also bit flush. I found a father (Larrakeyah tribe) with 
projecting upper jaw, while his son had the incisors flush. 
The occurrence of supernumerary teeth calls for some remarks. 
Duckworth, in his work on Morphology and Anthropology (1904), says : 
“ Completely-formed accessory molar teeth are not common in the Hominidse, 
although the palate and alveolar arcade in many crania of the aboriginals 
of Australia seem to be spacious enough to accommodate them. It is, 
however, in the cranium of such an aboriginal native that Sir William 
Turner records the occurrence of no less than three accessory molar teeth, 
and such anomalies are more frequent in the Melanesian and Australian 
aborigines than in other Hominidse.” 
The skull referred to, which was described by Sir William Turner in 
the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology , vol. xxxiv., was a skull from 
Morambro Station in this State, which I was fortunate to obtain and to 
present to the Edinburgh University Museum. The other day, on looking 
* Journal of Anat. and Phys., vol. xxv. p. 461, 1891. 
