"The man was what they called a <i>night fossicker</i>, who slept, or did nothing during the day, and then went round at night to where he knew the claims to be rich, and stole the stuff by candle-light."
1861. T. McCombie, `Australian Sketches,' p. 87:
"I can at once recognize the experienced `fossickers,' who know well how to go to work with every chance in their favour."
1864. J. Rogers, `New Rush,' pt. ii. p. 32:
"Steady old <i>fossickers</i> often get more
Than the first who open'd the ground."
1869. R. Brough Smyth, `Goldfields of Victoria,' p. 612:
"A fossicker is to the miner as is the gleaner to the reaper; he picks the crevices and pockets of the rocks."
1891. `The Australasian,' Nov. 21, p. 1015:
"We had heard that, on this same field, years after its total abandonment, a two hundred ounce nugget had been found by a solitary fossicker in a pillar left in an old claim."
1891. `The Argus,' Dec. 19, p. 4, col. 2: