"The settlers call 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 (Dacelo gigantea), which, from its regularity, has not been unaptly named the settlers'-clock."
1848. J. Gould, `Birds of Australia,' vol. ii. pl. 18:
"Dacelo Gigantea, 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 (Dacelo gigantea) 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:
"The name it vulgarly bears is a corruption of the French word Jacasser, `to chatter,' and the correct form is the `Laughing Jacasse.'"
[No. See above.]
1885. `Australasian Printers' Keepsake,' p. 76:
"Magpies chatter, and the jackass Laughs Good-morrow like a Bacchus."
1889. Rev. J. H. Zillmann, `Australian Life,' [telling an old story] p. 155:
"The Archbishop inquired the name of a curious bird which had attracted his attention. `Your grace, we call that the laughing jackass in this country, but I don't know the botanical [sic] name of the bird."
1890. C. Lumholtz, `Among Cannibals, p. 27:
"Few of the birds of Australia have pleased me as much as this curious laughing jackass, though it is both clumsy and unattractive in colour. Far from deserving its name jackass, it is on the contrary very wise and also very courageous. It boldly attacks venomous snakes and large lizards, and is consequently the friend of the colonist."
1890. Tasma, `In her Earliest Youth,' p. 265:
"`There's a jackass--a real laughing jackass on that dead branch. They have such a queer note; like this,, you know--'
and upon her companion's startled ears there rang forth, all of a sudden, the most curious, inimitable, guttural, diabolical tremolo it had ever befallen them to hear."
1890. `Victorian Statutes-Game Act, Third Schedule':
"[Close season.] Great Kingfisher or Laughing Jackass.
The whole year. all Kingfishers other than the Laughing Jackass.
From the 1st day of August to the 20th day of December next following in each year."
(2) The next quotations refer to the New Zealand bird.
1882. T. H. Potts, `Out in the Open,' p. 122:
"Athene Albifacies, wekau of the Maoris, is known by some up-country settlers as the big owl or laughing jackass."
"The cry of the laughing jackass ... Why it should share with one of our petrels and the great Dacelo of Australia the trivial name of laughing jackass, we know not; if its cry resembles laughter at all, it is the uncontrollable outburst, the convulsive shout of insanity; we have never been able to trace the faintest approach to mirthful sound in the unearthly yells of this once mysterious night-bird."
1888. W. L. Buller, `Birds of New Zealand,' vol. i. p. 198:
"Sceloglaux albifacies, Kaup., Laughing Owl; Laughing Jackass of the Colonists."
[The following quotation refers to the Derwent Jackass.]
1880. Mrs. Meredith, `Tasmanian Friends and Foes,' p. 110:
"You have heard of ... the laughing jackass. We, too, have a `jackass,' a smaller bird, and not in any way remarkable, except for its merry gabbling sort of song, which when several pipe up together, always gives one the idea of a party of very talkative people all chattering against time, and all at once."
1888. W. L. Buller, `Birds of New Zealand,' vol. i. p. 23:
"It has become the habit to speak of this bird as the Brown Saddle-back; but this is a misnomer, inasmuch as the absence of the `saddle' is its distinguishing feature. I have accordingly adopted the name of Jack-bird, by which it is known among the settlers in the South Island. Why it should be so called I cannot say, unless this is an adaptation of the native name Tieke, the same word being the equivalent, in the Maori vernacular, of our Jack."