1896. A. B. Paterson, `Man from Snowy River,' p. 10:
"But maybe you're only a Johnnie, And don't know a horse from a hoe?
Weel, weel, don't get angry, my Sonny, But, really, a young `un should know."
Shakspeare, `King John,' IV. i. 117:
"And like a dog that is compelled to fight, Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on."
1896. Mrs. Langloh Parker, `Australian Legendary Tales,'
p. 90:
"She went quickly towards her camp, calling softly, `Birree gougou,' which meant `Sool 'em, sool 'em,' and was the signal for the dogs to come out."
See Apple.
1863. S. Butler, `First Year in Canterbury Settlement,' p. 13:
"The southern cross is a very great delusion. It isn't a cross. It is a kite, a kite upside down, an irregular kite upside down, with only three respectable stars and one very poor and very much out of place. Near it, however, is a truly mysterious and interesting object called the coal sack: it is a black patch in the sky distinctly darker than all the rest of the heavens. No star shines through it. The proper name for it is the black Magellan cloud."
1868. Mrs. Riddell, `Lay of Far South,' p. 4:
"Yet do I not regret the loss, Thou hast thy gleaming Southern Cross."
1887. R. M. Praed, `Longleat of Kooralbyn,' c. iv. p. 35:
"The Southern Cross rose gem-like above the horizon."
1890. Rolf Boldrewood, `Colonial Reformer,' c. xvii. p. 202:
"The spade-press--that friendly adjunct of the pioneer squatter's humble wool-shed."
1857. `Paul's Letters from Canterbury,' p. 108:
"The country through which I have passed has been most savage, one mass of Spaniards."
1862. J. Von Haast, `Geology of Westland,' p. 25:
"Groves of large specimens of Discaria toumatoo, the Wild Irishman of the settlers, formed with the gigantic Aciphylla Colensoi, the Spaniard or Bayonet-grass, an often impenetrable thicket."
1863. S. Butler, `First Year of Canterbury Settlement,' p. 67:
"The Spaniard (spear-grass or bayonet-grass) `piked us intil the bane,' and I assure you we were hard set to make any headway at all."
1875. Lady Barker, `Station Amusements in New Zealand,' p. 35:
"The least touch of this green bayonet draws blood, and a fall into a Spaniard is a thing to be remembered all one's life."
1882. T. H. Potts, `Out in the Open,' p. 287:
"Carefully avoiding contact with the long-armed leaves of Spaniards (Aciphylla), which here attain the larger dimensions, carrying flower-spikes up to six feet long."
1890. `Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,'
vol. xxiii. p. 197:
"Here were rats which lived under the dead leaves of the prickly `Spaniard,' and possibly fed on the roots.
The Spaniard leaves forked into stiff upright fingers about 1 in. wide, ending in an exceedingly stiff pricking point."
1896. `Otago Witness,' May 7, p. 48 "Prickly as the points of the Spaniard."
1847. L. Leichhardt, `Overland Expedition,' p. 44:
"Very disagreeable, however, was the abundance of burr and of a spear-grass (Aristida)."
1865. Rev. J. E. Tenison-Woods, `History of the Discovery and Exploration of Australia,' vol. ii. p. 463 [Note]:
"On the south coast there is a grass seed which has similar properties. The seeds are sharp and covered with fine barbs, and once they penetrate the skin they will work their way onwards. They catch in the wool of sheep, and in a short time reach the intestines. Very often I have been shown the omentum of a dead sheep where the grass seeds were projecting like a pavement of pegs. The settlers call it spear-grass, and it is, I believe, a species of Anthistiria."
1874. W. H. L. Ranken, `Dominion of Australia,' c. v. p. 86:
"Sheep in paddocks cannot be so well kept clear of spear-grass."
1889. J. H. Maiden, `Useful Native Plants,' p. 90:
"Heteropogon contortus, Spear Grass. A splendid grass for a cattle-run, as it produces a great amount of feed, but is dreaded by the sheep-owner on account of its spear-like seeds."
1890. C. Lumholtz, `Among Cannibals,' p. 23: