Austral English Part 251

"`Swagsmen' too, genuine, or only `sundowners,'--men who loaf about till sunset, and then come in with the demand for the unrefusable `rations.'"

1892. `Scribner's Magazine,' Feb., p. 143:

"They swell the n.o.ble army of swagmen or sundowners, who are chiefly the fearful human wrecks which the ebbing tide of mining industry has left stranded in Australia."

[This writer does not differentiate between Swagman (q.v.) and Sundowner.]

1893. `Sydney Morning Herald,' Aug. 12, p. 8, col. 7:

"Numbers of men who came to be known by the cla.s.s name of `sundowners,' from their habit of straggling up at fall of evening with the stereotyped appeal for work; and work being at that hour impossible, they were sent to the travellers' hut for shelter and to the storekeeper or cook for the pannikin of flour, the bit of mutton, the sufficiency of tea for a brew, which made up a ration."

1896. `Windsor Magazine,' Dec., p. 132:

"`Here,' he remarked, `is a capital picture of a Queensland sundowner.' The picture represented a solitary figure standing in pathetic isolation on a boundless plain. `A sundowner?' I queried. `Yes; the lowest cla.s.s of nomad. For days they will tramp across the plains carrying, you see, their supply of water. They approach a station only at sunset, hence the name.

At that hour they know they will not be turned away.' `Do they take a day's work?' `Not they! There is an old bush saying, that the sundowner's one request is for work, and his one prayer is that be may not find it.'"

Super, n. short for superintendent, sc. of a station.

1870. A. L. Gordon, `Bush Ballads,' p. 23:

"What's up with our super to-night? The man's mad."

1890. Rolf Boldrewood, `Colonial Reformer,' c. ix. p. 83:

"That super's a growlin' ignorant beggar as runs a feller from daylight to dark for nothing at all."

1890. `The Argus,' June 10, p. 4, col. 1:

"He ... bragged of how he had bested the super who tried to `wing him' in the scrub."

Superb-Dragon, n. an Australian marine fish, Phyllopteryx foliatus, Shaw. See Sea-Dragon.

1880. Mrs. Meredith, `Tasmanian Friends and Foes,' pl. 7:

"`Superb-Dragon--Phyllopteryx Foliatus.' This is one of the `Pipe fishes,' order Lophobranchii. It has been compared to the ghost of a seahorse (Hippocampus) with its winding sheet all in ribbons around it; and the tattered cerements are like in shape and colour to the seaweed it frequents, so that it hides and feeds in safety. The long ends of ribs which seem to poke through the skin to excite our compa.s.sion are really `protective resemblances,' and serve to allure the prey more effectually within reach of these awful ghouls. Just as the leaf-insect is imitative of a leaf, and the staff insect of a twig, so here is a fish like a bunch of seaweed. (Tenison-Woods.)" [Compare Phasmid.]

Superb-Warbler, n. any Australian bird of the genus Malurus (q.v.), especially M. cyaneus, the Blue Wren.

1847. L. Leichhardt, `Overland Expedition,' p. 80:

"We also observed the Superb Warbler, Malurus cyaneus, of Sydney."

1848. J. Gould, `Birds of Australia,' vol. iii. pl. 18:

"Malurus Cyaneus, Vieill., Blue Wren; Superb Warbler of the Colonists."

1896. F. G. Aflalo, `Natural History of Australia,' p. 136:

"The best known are ... and the Blue Wren or Superb Warbler (Malurus cyaneus), both of which I have repeatedly watched in the Sydney Botanic Gardens... .

They dart about the pathways like mice, but rarely seem to fly.

There are a dozen other Superb Warblers."

Supple-jack, n. The word is English in the sense of a strong cane, and is the name of various climbing shrubs from which the canes are cut; especially in America.

In Australia, the name is given to similar creeping plants, viz.--Ventilago viminalis, Hook., N.O. Rhamnaceae; Clematis aristata, R. Br., N.O. Ranunculaceae. In New Zealand, to Ripogonum (spp.).

1818. `History of New South Wales,' p. 47:

"The underwood is in general so thick and so bound together by that kind of creeping shrub called supple-jack, interwoven in all directions, as to be absolutely impenetrable."

1845. E. J. Wakefield, `Adventures in New Zealand,' vol. i.

p. 218:

"After a tedious march ... along a track constantly obstructed by webs of the kareau, or supple-jack, we came to the brow of a descent."

1857. C. Hursthouse, `New Zealand, the Britain of the South,'

vol. i. p. 135:

"Supple-jack snares, root-traps, and other parasitical impediments."

1867. F. Hochstetter, `New Zealand,' p. 135:

"Two kinds of creepers extremely molesting and troublesome, the so-called `supple-jack' of the colonists (Ripogonum parviflorum), in the ropelike creeping vines of which the traveller finds himself every moment entangled."

1872. A. Domett, `Ranolf,' p. 11:

"The tangles black Of looped and s.h.i.+ning supple jack."

1874. W. M. B., `Narrative of Edward Crewe,' p. 199:

The supple-jack, that stopper to all speedy progression in the New Zealand forest."

1881. J.L. Campbell, `Poenamo,' p. 154:

"Forty or fifty feet of supple-jack. This creeper is of the thickness of your finger, and runs along the ground, and goes up the trees and springs across from one tree to the other, spanning great gaps in some mysterious manner of its own--a tough, rascally creeper that won't break, that you can't twist in two, that you must cut, that trips you by the foot or the leg, and sometimes catches you by the neck ... so useful withal in its proper places."

1882. T. H. Potts, `Out in the Open,' p. 71:

"Threading with somewhat painful care intricacies formed by loops and snares of bewildering supple-jacks, that living study of Gordian entanglement, nature-woven, for patient exercise of hand and foot."

1892. A. Sutherland, `Elementary Geography of British Colonies,' p. 309:

"Laced together by creepers called supple-jacks, which twine and twist for hundreds of yards, with stems as thick as a man's wrist, so as to make the forests impa.s.sable except with axes and immense labour."

Surfacing, n. (1) Wash-dirt lying on the surface of the ground.

(2) verbal n. Gold-digging on the surface of the ground.

1861. T. McCombie, `Australian Sketches,' p. 133: