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.

Different articles of food eaten by the natives of Western Australia:

Six sorts of kangaroo.
Twenty-nine sorts of fish.
One kind of whale.
Two species of seal.
Wild dogs.
Three kinds of turtle.
Emus, wild turkeys, and birds of every kind.
Two species of opossum.
Eleven kinds of frogs.
Four kinds of freshwater shellfish.
All saltwater shellfish, except oysters.
Four kinds of grubs.
Eggs of every species of bird or lizard.
Five animals, something smaller in size than rabbits.
Eight sorts of snakes.
Seven sorts of iguana.
Nine species of mice and small rats.
Twenty-nine sorts of roots.
Seven kinds of fungus.
Four sorts of gum.
Two sorts of manna.
Two species of by-yu, or the nut of the Zamia palm.
Two species of mesembryanthemum.
Two kinds of nut.
Four sorts of fruit.
The flower of several species of Banksia.
One kind of earth, which they pound and mix with the root of the mene.
The seeds of several species of leguminous plants.

It will be necessary however before commencing this sketch to give an
outline of the weapons and implements with which the different animals
are caught and killed, and the vegetable productions procured.

EQUIPMENT FOR A HUNT. IMPLEMENTS FOR DESTROYING ANIMALS.

The natives nearly always carry the