414 
On the Aborigines 
Their only mode of cooking is by roasting on the fire, whole ; 
they do not take out the entrails until after it is done, which it is 
supposed to be when heated through. Some tribes, or portions 
of tribes, will not eat the female wallaby, others will not eat the 
male: to what superstition this is attributable, I am ignorant. 
Others will not eat scaled fish ; and it appeared to me, when at 
Flinders’ Island, that the western natives would not eat the smooth 
shelled haliotis, though the easterns did. The smooth shelled 
haliotis is more numerous on the east coast than the other species, 
and the reverse on the western coast; but that seems scarcely a 
sufficient reason to induce the western natives to reject it. 
Besides the paltry indigenous fruits, hardly worthy of the name, 
almost the only vegetable production they use, is a kind of truffle, 
or underground fungus (Mylitta australis ), which has much the 
taste of cold boiled rice, which cooking does not appear to 
alter. They use besides, parts of the tree-fern and grass-tree, 
( Xanthorrhcea ) but they can scarcely be esteemed articles of 
food. A large white caterpillar, about two inches in length, 
found in rotten wood and in the banksia, together with the 
eggs of the large ant, are considered luxuries. Before their 
intercourse with Europeans, they do not appear to have had 
any knowledge of boiling water. They were often a long time 
without food, and then ate it in great quantities. When they are 
short of food they tighten a string of kangaroo sinews, which they 
wear round their middle. The enormous quantity of food which 
they are capable of eating, when they have an opportunity, would 
scarcely be credited. A native woman at the settlement at 
Flinders’ Island, was one day watched by one of the officers, and 
seen to eat between fifty and sixty eggs, of the “ sooty petrel” 
(procellaria sp.), besides a double allowance of bread : these eggs 
exceed those of a duck in size. 
The men go quite naked, with the exception of the string of 
kangaroo sinews; this, besides the uses already mentioned, they 
use for carrying their waddies in. The women generally wear a 
kangaroo skin, likewise the kangaroo sinew belt, and another 
round and over their breasts. I have seen the women scarified, 
but whether for ornament, or from surgical treatment,! know not. 
