Generally speaking the natives live well; in some districts there may at particular seasons of the year be a deficiency of food, but if such is the case these tracts are at those times deserted.  It is however utterly impossible for a traveller or even for a strange native to judge whether a district affords an abundance of food or the contrary; for in traversing extensive parts of Australia I have found the sorts of food vary from latitude to latitude, so that the vegetable productions used by the Aborigines in one are totally different to those in another; if therefore a stranger has no one to point out to him the vegetable productions, the soil beneath his feet may teem with food whilst he starves.  The same rule holds good with regard to animal productions; for example in the southern parts of the continent the Xanthorrhoea affords an inexhaustible supply of fragrant grubs, which an epicure would delight in when once he has so far conquered his prejudices as to taste them; whilst in proceeding to the northward these trees decline in health and growth, until about the parallel of Gantheaume Bay they totally disappear, and even a native finds himself cut off from his ordinary supplies of insects; the same circumstances taking place with regard to the roots and other kinds of food at the same time, the traveller necessarily finds himself reduced to cruel extremities.  A native from the plains, taken into an elevated mountainous district near his own country for the first time, is equally at fault.

VARIED WITH THE SEASONS.

But in his own district a native is very differently situated; he knows exactly what it produces, the proper time at which the several articles are in season, and the readiest means of procuring them.  According to these circumstances he regulates his visits to the different portions of his hunting ground; and I can only state that I have always found the greatest abundance in their huts.

CAUSES OF OCCASIONAL WANT.

There are however two periods of the year when they are at times subjected to the pangs of hunger:  these are in the hottest time of summer and in the height of the rainy season.  At the former period the heat renders them so excessively indolent that until forced by want they will not move, and at the latter they suffer so severely from the cold and rain that I have known them remain for two successive days at their huts without quitting the fire; and even when they do quit it they always carry a fire-stick with them, which greatly embarrasses their movements.  In all ordinary seasons however they can obtain in two or three hours a sufficient supply of food for the day, but their usual custom is to roam indolently from spot to spot, lazily collecting it as they wander along.

LIST OF EDIBLE ARTICLES.

That an accurate idea may be formed of the quantity and kinds of food which they obtain, I have given below a list of those in use amongst the aborigines of South-western Australia which I have seen them collect and eat; and I will, in the order in which they stand on this list, show the mode of obtaining them, and the way in which they are cooked.