VII. AUTHORITIES._Austral English

The less-known birds, fishes, plants, and trees are in many

cases not illustrated by quotations, but have moved to their

places in the Dictionary from lists of repute. Many books have

been written on the Natural History of Australia and New

Zealand, and these have been placed under contribution. Under

the head of Botany no book has been of greater service than

Maiden's Useful Native Plants. Unfortunately many

scientific men scorn vernacular names, but Mr. Maiden has taken

the utmost pains with them, and has thereby largely increased

the utility of his volume. For Tasmania there is Mr. Spicer's

Handbook of Tasmanian Plants; for New Zealand, Kirk's

Forest Flora and Hooker's Botany.

For Australian animals Lydekker's Marsupials and

Monotremes is excellent; especially his section on the

Phalanger or Australian Opossum, an animal which has

been curiously neglected by all Dictionaries of repute. On New

Zealand mammals it is not necessary to quote any book; for when

the English came, it is said, New Zealand contained no mammal

larger than a rat. Captain Cook turned two pigs loose; but it

is stated on authority, that these pigs left no descendants.

One was ridden to death by Maori boys, and the other was killed

for sacrilege: he rooted in a tapu burial-place. Nevertheless,

the settlers still call any wild-pig, especially if lean and

bony, a "Captain Cook."

For the scientific nomenclature of Australian Botany the

Census of Australian Plants by the Baron von Mueller

(1889) is indispensable. It has been strictly followed. For

fishes reliance has been placed upon Tenison Woods' Fishes

and Fisheries of New South Wales (1882), on W. Macleay's

Descriptive Catalogue of Australian Fishes (Proceedings

of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales, vols. v. and vi.),

and on Dr. Guenther's Study of Fishes. For the

scientific nomenclature of Animal Life, the standard of

reference has been the Tabular List of all the Australian

Birds by E. P. Ramsay of the Australian Museum, Sydney

(1888); Catalogue of Australian Mammals by J. O. Ogilby

of the Australian Museum, Sydney (1892); Catalogue of

Marsupials and Monotremes, British Museum (1888);

Prodromus to the Natural History of Victoria by Sir

F. McCoy. Constant reference has also been made to Proceedings

of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales, Proceedings and

Transactions of the Royal Societies of Victoria and Tasmania,

and to the journal of the Field Naturalist Club of Victoria.

The birds both in Australia and New Zealand have been

handsomely treated by the scientific illustrators. Gould's

Birds of Australia and Buller's Birds of New

Zealand are indeed monumental works. Neither Gould nor Sir

Walter Buller scorns vernacular names. But since the days of

the former the number of named species of Australian birds has

largely increased, and in January 1895, at the Brisbane Meeting

of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science,

a Committee was appointed to draw up a list of vernacular

bird-names. By the kindness of a member of this Committee

(Mr. A. J. Campbell of Melbourne) I was allowed the use of a

list of such vernacular names drawn up by him and Col. Legge

for submission to the Committee.