`Thumbnail Sketches of Australian
Life,' p. 33

"In the back-blocks of New South Wales he had known both hunger
and thirst, and had suffered from sunstroke."

1893. `The Australasian,' Aug. 12, p. 302, col. 1:

"Although Kara is in the back-blocks of New South Wales, the
clothes and boots my brother wears come from Bond Street."

<hw>Back-block</hw>, <i>adj</i>. from the interior.

1891. Rolf Boldrewood, `Sydneyside Saxon,' vol. xii. p. 215:

"`What a nice mare that is of yours!' said one of the
back-block youngsters."

<hw>Back-blocker</hw>, <i>n</i>. a resident in the back-blocks.

1870. `The Argus,' March 22, p. 7, col. 2

"I am a bushman, a back blocker, to whom it happens about once
in two years to visit Melbourne."

1892. E. W. Hornung, `Under Two Skies,' p. 21:

"As for Jim, he made himself very busy indeed, sitting on his
heels over the fire in an attitude peculiar to back-blockers."

<hw>Back-slanging</hw>, <i>verbal n</i>. In the back-blocks
(q.v.) of Australia, where hotels are naturally scarce and
inferior, the traveller asks for hospitality at the
<i>stations</i> (q.v.) on his route, where he is always made
welcome. There is no idea of anything underhand on the part of
the traveller, yet the custom is called <i>back-slanging</i>.

<hw>Badger</hw>, <i>n</i>. This English name has been
incorrectly applied in Australia, sometimes to the Bandicoot,
sometimes to the Rock-Wallaby, and sometimes to the Wombat. In
Tasmania, it is the usual bush-name for the last.

1829. `The Picture of Australia,' p. 173:

"The <i>Parameles</i>, to which the colonists sometimes give
the name of badger. . . ."

1831. Ross, `Hobart Town Almanack,' p. 265:

"That delicious animal, the wombat (commonly known at that
place [Macquarie Harbour] by the name of <i>badger</i>, hence
the little island of that name in the map was so called, from
the circumstance of numbers of that animal being at first found
upon it)."

1850. James Bennett Clutterbuck, M.D., `Port Phillip in 1849,'
p. 37:

"The rock Wallaby, or Badger, also belongs to the family of the
Kangaroo; its length from the nose to the end of the tail is
three feet; the colour of the fur being grey-brown."

1875. Rev. J. G. Wood, `Natural History,' vol. i. p. 481:

"The Wombat or Australian Badger as it is popularly called by
the colonists. . . ."

1891. W. Tilley, `Wild West of Tasmania,' p. 8:

"With the exception of wombats or `badgers,'