ll this bird the Laughing Jackass. I have also
heard it called the Hawkesbury-Clock (clocks being at the
period of my residence scarce articles in the colony, there not
being one perhaps in the whole Hawkesbury settlement), for it
is among the first of the feathered tribes which announce the
approach of day."

1846. G. H. Haydon, `Five Years in Australia Felix,'
p. 71:

"The laughing jackass, or settler's-clock is an uncouth looking
creature of an ashen brown colour . . . This bird is the
first to indicate by its note the approach of day, and thus it
has received its other name, the settler's clock."

1847. L. Leichhardt, `Overland Expedition,' p. 234:

"I usually rise when I hear the merry laugh of the laughing-
jackass (<i>Dacelo gigantea</i>), which, from its regularity,
has not been unaptly named the settlers'-clock."

1848. J. Gould, `Birds of Australia,' vol. ii. pl. 18:

"<i>Dacelo Gigantea</i>, Leach, Great Brown King Fisher;
Laughing Jackass of the Colonists."

1855. W. Howitt, `Two Years in Victoria,' vol. i. p. 58:

"You are startled by a loud, sudden cackling, like flocks of
geese, followed by an obstreperous hoo! hoo! ha! ha! of the
laughing jackass (<i>Dacelo gigantea</i>) a species of jay."

[Howitt's comparison with the jay is evidently due to the azure
iridescent markings on the upper part of the wings, in colour
like the blue feathers on the jay.]

1862. F. J. Jobson, `Australia,' c. vi. p. 145:

"The odd medley of cackling, bray, and chuckle notes from
the `Laughing Jackass.'"

1872. C. H. Eden, `My Wife and I in Queensland,' p. 18:

"At daylight came a hideous chorus of fiendish laughter, as if
the infernal regions had been broken loose--this was the song of
another feathered innocent, the laughing jackass--not half a bad
sort of fellow when you come to know him, for he kills snakes,
and is an infallible sign of the vicinity of fresh-water."

1880. T. W. Nutt, `Palace of Industry,' p. 15:

"Where clock-bird laughed and sweet wildflowers throve."

[Footnote] "The familiar laughing jackass."

1880. Garnet Walch, `Victoria in 1880,' p. 13:

"Dense forests, where the prolonged cacchinations of that cynic
of the woods, as A. P. Martin calls the laughing jackass,
seemed to mock us for our pains."

1881. A. C. Grant, `Bush Life in Queensland,' vol. i. p. 37:

"The harsh-voiced, big-headed, laughing jackass."

1881. D. Blair, `Cyclopaedia of Australasia,' p. 202:

"T