Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia - Edward Ellis Morris

<hw>Boar-fish</hw>, n. a name applied in England to various dissimilar fishes which have projecting snouts. (`Century.') In New Zealand it is given to Cyttus australis, family Cyttidae, which is related to the John Dory (q.v.). This name is sometimes applied to it, and it is also called Bastard Dory (q.v.). In Melbourne the Boar-fish is Histiopterus recurvirostris, family Percidae, and Pentaceropsis recurvirostris, family Pentacerotidae. Mrs. Meredith, in `Tasmanian Friends and Foes,' 1880 (pl. vi.), figures Histiopterus recurvirostris with the vernacular name of Pig-faced Lady. It is a choice edible fish.

<hw>Boil down</hw>, v. to reduce a statement to its simplest form; a constant term amongst pressmen. Over the reporters' table in the old `Daily Telegraph' office (Melbourne) there was a big placard with the words-"Boil it down." The phrase is in use in England. `O.E.D.' quotes `Saturday Review,' 1880. The metaphor is from the numerous boiling-down establishments for rendering fat sheep into tallow. See quotation, 1878.

1878. F. P. Labilliere, `Early History of the Colony of Victoria,' vol. ii. p. 330:

"The first step which turned the tide of ill-fortune was the introduction of the system of boiling down sheep. When stock became almost worthless, it occurred to many people that, when a fleece of wool was worth from half-a-crown to three shillings in England, and a sheep's tallow three or four more, the value of the animal in Australia ought to exceed eighteenpence or two shillings. Accordingly thousands of sheep were annually boiled down after shearing . . . until . . . the gold discovery; and then `boiling down,' which had saved the country, had to be given up. . . . The Messrs. Learmonth at Buninyong . . . found it answered their purpose to have a place of their own, instead of sending their fat stock, as was generally done, to a public `boiling down' establishment."

1895. `The Argus,' Aug. 17, p. 8, col. 2:

"Boiled down, the matter comes to this."

<hw>Bonduc Nuts</hw>, n. a name in Australia for the fruit of the widely distributed plant Caesalpina bonducella, Flem., N.O. Leguminosae. Called Molucca Beans in Scotland and Nicker Nuts elsewhere.

<hw>Bonito</hw>, n. Sir Frederick McCoy says that the Tunny, the same fish as the European species Thynnus thynnus, family Scombridae, or Mackerels, is called Bonito, erroneously, by the colonists and fishermen. The true Bonito is Thynnus pelamys, Linn., though the name is also applied to various other fishes in Europe, the United States, and the West Indies.

<hw>Bony-Bream</hw>, i.q. Sardine (q.v.).

<hw>Boobook</hw>, n. an owl. Ninox boobook (see Owl); Athene boobook (Gould's `Birds of Australia,' vol.i. pl. 32)." From cry or note of bird. In the Mukthang language of Central Gippsland, BawBaw, the mountain in Gippsland, is this word as heard by the English ear." (A. W. Howitt.) In South Australia the word is used for a mopoke.