Abstract
IN a reference to a publication made some time ago by Mrs. I. W. Dadswell (Austral. J. Exp. Biol. and Med. Sci., 12, 13 (1934), Sir James Barrett points out that all the useful plants and animals now established in Australia were imported. The criticism that the aborigines never cultivated a plant nor domesticated an animal as a source of food is equally applicable to Europeans, in so far as the indigenous flora and fauna are concerned. Yet the aborigines, whom we are accustomed to regard as an uncivilized vestige of the Stone Age, have adapted themselves to their environment so as to be able to live and thrive where Europeans would starve. Thus, Governor Phillip had to ration the first settlement at Sydney Cove in 1788; and white men lost in the bush have usually perished unless helped by aborigines.
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Plant Foods of Australian Aborigines. Nature 145, 966–967 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145966c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145966c0