The other kinds of food which I have mentioned on the list scarcely require a particular description.  They are collected by the people as they rove from spot to spot, and are rather used as adjuncts to help out a meal than as staple articles of provision; several of them are however much liked by the natives, and they always regulate the visits to their hunting grounds so as to be at any part which plentifully produces a certain sort of food at the time this article is in full season:  this roving habit produces a similar character in the kangaroos, emus, and other sorts of game which are never driven more from one part than from another.  In fact they are kept in a constant state of movement from place to place; but directly a European settles down in the country his constant residence in one spot soon sends the animals away from it, and although he may in no other way interfere with the natives the mere circumstance of his residing there does the man on whose land he settles the injury of depriving him of his ordinary means of subsistence.

EDIBLE PRODUCTIONS VARY IN DIPFERENT DISTRICTS.  COMMON RIGHTS IN CERTAIN FOOD.

If the land of any native is deficient in any particular article of food, such as, by-yu, mun-gyte (Banksia flowers) etc., he makes a point of visiting some neighbour whose property is productive in this particular article at the period in which it is in perfection; and there are even some tracts of land which abound in gum, kwon-nat, etc., which numerous families appear to have an acknowledged right to visit at the period of the year when this article is in season, although they are not allowed to come there at any other time.  This is a curious point and might throw some further light upon the subject of their families or lines of descent.

It must be borne in mind that the articles of food I have enumerated in this chapter belong only to a particular district of about two hundred miles in extent, for every degree of latitude some articles would disappear from the list, whilst other new ones would enter into it.  For instance on the north-west coast they eat a species of oyster (unio) the almonds of the pandanus, wild grapes, guavas, the excellent fruit of a species of capparis, and many other articles which are not known upon the south-west coast; but these are procured and cooked in the same manner as the articles which I have already enumerated.  My object being merely to give such an outline as would enable the reader to understand well the mode of life of an Australian savage, I did not think such particular details necessary as I should have been led into, had I enumerated all the sorts of food which I have seen eaten by the natives in Australia.

CHAPTER 15.  SONGS AND POETRY.

GENERAL PRACTICE OF SINGING.  TRADITIONAL SONGS.