1893. `The Herald' (Melbourne), Dec. 23, p. 6, col. 1:
"Every one might not know what a `cobbler' is. It is the last sheep in a catching pen, and consequently a bad one to shear, as the easy ones are picked first. The cobbler must be taken out before `Sheep-ho' will fill up again. In the harvest field English rustics used to say, when picking up the last sheaf, `This is what the cobbler threw at his wife.' `What?' `The last,' with that lusty laugh, which, though it might betray `a vacant mind,' comes from a very healthy organism."
<hw>Cobblers-Awl</hw>, <i>n</i>. bird-name. The word is a provincial English name for the <i>Avocet</i>. In Tasmania, the name is applied to a <i>Spine-Bill</i> (q.v.) from the shape of its beak.
1848. J. Gould, `Birds of Australia,' vol. iv. pl. 61:
"<i>Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris</i>, Lath., Slender-billed Spine-bill. <i>Cobbler's Awl</i>, Colonists of Van Diemen's Land. <i>Spine-bill</i>, Colonists of New South Wales."
<hw>Cobbler's Pegs</hw>, name given to a tall erect annual weed, <i>Erigeron linifolius</i>, Willd., <i>N.O. Compositae</i> and to <i>Bidens pilosus</i>, Linn., <i>N.O. Compositae</i>.
<hw>Cobbra</hw>, <i>n</i>. aboriginal word for head, skull. [<i>Kabura</i> or <i>Kobbera</i>, with such variations as Kobra, Kobbera, Kappara, Kopul, from Malay Kapala, head: one of the words on the East Coast manifestly of Malay origin.—J. Mathew. Much used in pigeon converse with blacks. `Goodway cobra tree' = `Tree very tall.'] Collins, `Port Jackson Vocabulary,' 1798 (p. 611), gives `Kabura, ca-ber-ra.' Mount Cobberas in East Gippsland has its name from huge head-like masses of rock which rise from the summit.
1881. A. C. Grant, `Bush Life in Queensland,' vol. i. p. 31:
"The black fellow who lives in the bush bestows but small attention on his cobra, as the head is usually called in the pigeon-English which they employ."
1890. Rolf Boldrewood, `Colonial Reformer,' c. xiii. p. 134: