Austral English Part 40

"Almost the whole of New South Wales is covered with bush.

It is not the bush as known in New Zealand. It is rather a park-like expanse, where the trees stand widely apart, and where there is gra.s.s on the soil between them."

Bush, adj. or in composition, not always easy to distinguish, the hyphen depending on the fancy of the writer.

1836. Ross, `Hobart Town Almanack,' p. 75:

"The round trundling of our cart wheels, it is well known, does not always improve the labours of Macadam, much less a bush road."

1848. Letter by Mrs. Perry, given in Canon Goodman's `Church in Victoria, during Episcopate of Bishop Perry,'p. 75:

"A hard bush sofa, without back or ends."

1849. J. Sidney, `Emigrants' Journal, and Travellers'

Magazine,' p. 40 (Letter from Caroline Chisholm):

"What I would particularly recommend to new settlers is `Bush Partners.h.i.+p'--Let two friends or neighbours agree to work together, until three acres are cropped, dividing the work, the expense, and the produce--this partners.h.i.+p will grow apace; I have made numerous bush agreements of this kind ...

I never knew any quarrel or bad feeling result from these partners.h.i.+ps, on the contrary, I believe them calculated to promote much neighbourly good will; but in the a.s.sociation of a large number of strangers, for an indefinite period, I have no confidence."

1857. W. Westgarth, `Victoria,' c. xi. p. 250:

"The gloomy ant.i.thesis of good bushranging and bad bush-roads."

[Bush-road, however, does not usually mean a made-road through the bush, but a road which has not been formed, and is in a state of nature except for the wear of vehicles upon it, and perhaps the clearing of trees and scrub.]

1864. `The Reader,' April 2, p. 40, col. 1 (`O.E.D.'):

"The roads from the nascent metropolis still partook mainly of the random character of `bush tracks.'"

1865. W. Hewitt, `Discovery in Australia,' vol. ii. p. 211:

"Dr. Wills offered to go himself in the absence of any more youthful and, through bush seasoning, qualified person."

1880. `Blackwood's Magazine,' Feb., p. 169 [t.i.tle]:

"Bush-Life in Queensland."

1881. R. M. Praed, `Policy and Pa.s.sion,' c. i. p. 59:

"The driver paused before a bush inn."

[In Australia the word "inn" is now rare. The word "hotel"

has supplanted it.]

1889. Ca.s.sell's `Picturesque Australasia,' vol. iv.p. 3:

"Not as bush roads go. The Australian habit is here followed of using `bush' for country, though no word could be more ludicrously inapplicable, for there is hardly anything on the way that can really be called a bush."

1894. `Sydney Morning Herald' (exact date lost):

"Canada, Cape Colony, and Australia have preserved the old significance of Bush--Chaucer has it so--as a territory on which there are trees; it is a simple but, after all, a kindly development that when a territory is so unlucky as to have no trees, sometimes, indeed, to be bald of any growth whatever, it should still be spoken of as if it had them."

1896. Rolf Boldrewood, in preface to `The Man from Snowy River':

"It is not easy to write ballads descriptive of the bushland of Australia, as on light consideration would appear."

1896. H. Lawson, `While the Billy boils,' p. 104:

"About Byrock we met the bush liar in all his glory. He was dressed like--like a bush larrikin. His name was Jim."

Bush-faller, n. one who cuts down timber in the bush.

1882. `Pall Mall Gazette,' June 29, p. 2, col. 1:

"A broken-down, deserted shanty, inhabited once, perhaps, by rail-splitters or bush-fallers." [`O.E.D.,' from which this quotation is taken, puts (?) before the meaning; but "To fall"

is not uncommon in Australia for "to fell."]

Bush-fire, n. forests and gra.s.s on fire in hot summers.

1868. C. Dilke, `Greater Britain,' vol. ii. part iii. c. iii.

p. 32:

"The smoke from these bush-fires extends for hundreds of miles to sea."

1884. Rolf Boldrewood, `Melbourne Memories,' c. xxii. p. 156:

"A reserve in case of bush-fires and bad seasons."

Bush-lawyer, n. (1) A Bramble.

See Lawyer.

(2) Name often used for a layman who fancies he knows all about the law without consulting a solicitor. He talks a great deal, and `lays down the law.'

1896. H. G. Turner, `Lecture on J. P. Fawkner':

"For some years he cultivated and developed his capacity for rhetorical argument by practising in the minor courts of law in Tasmania as a paid advocate, a position which in those days, and under the exceptional circ.u.mstances of the Colony, was not restricted to members of the legal profession, and the term Bush Lawyer probably takes its origin from the practice of this period."

Bush-magpie, n. an Australian bird, more commonly called a Magpie (q.v.).

1888. Ca.s.sell's `Picturesque Australasia,' vol. ii. p. 235:

"... the omnipresent bush-magpie. Here he may warble all the day long on the liquid, mellifluous notes of his Doric flute, fit pipe indeed for academic groves ... sweetest and brightest, most cheery and sociable of all Australian birds."

Bushman, n. (1) Settler in the bush.

Used to distinguish country residents from townsfolk.

1852. `Blackwood's Magazine,' p. 522 (`O.E.D.'):

"Where the wild bushman eats his loathly fare."