The following extract from Captain Grey's work gives the result of that gentlemen's observations in Western Australia, corroborated by Dr.Lang's experience of the practice among the natives of New South Wales, (vol.ii.p.

232 to 236.) "TRADITIONAL LAWS RELATIVE TO LANDED PROPERTY .-- Landed property does not belong to a tribe, or to several families, but to a single male; and the limits of his property are so accurately defined that every native knows those of his own land, and can point out the various objects which mark his boundary.

I cannot establish the fact and the universality of this institution better than by the following letter addressed by Dr.Lang, the Principal of Sydney College, New South Wales, to Dr.Hodgkin, the zealous advocate of the Aboriginal Races: "LIVERPOOL, 15th Nov.

1840.
"My Dear Friend,--In reply to the question which you proposed to me some time ago, in the course of conversation in London, and of which you have reminded me in the letter I had the pleasure of receiving from you yesterday, with the pamphlets and letters for America, viz.--'Whether the Aborigines of the Australian continent have any idea of property in land,' I beg to answer most decidedly in the affirmative.

It is well known that these Aborigines in no instance cultivate the soil, but subsist entirely by hunting and fishing, and on the wild roots they find in certain localities (especially the common fern), with occasionally a little wild honey; indigenous fruits being exceedingly rare.