"Few of the birds of Australia have pleased me as much as this curious laughing jackass, though it is both clumsy and unattractive in colour. Far from deserving its name jackass, it is on the contrary very wise and also very courageous. It boldly attacks venomous snakes and large lizards, and is consequently the friend of the colonist."
1890. Tasma, `In her Earliest Youth,' p. 265:
"`There's a jackass—a real laughing jackass on that dead branch. They have such a queer note; like this,, you know—' and upon her companion's startled ears there rang forth, all of a sudden, the most curious, inimitable, guttural, diabolical tremolo it had ever befallen them to hear."
1890. `Victorian Statutes-Game Act, Third Schedule':
"[Close season.] Great Kingfisher or Laughing Jackass.
The whole year. all Kingfishers other than the Laughing Jackass.
From the 1st day of August to the 20th day of December next
following in each year."
(2) The next quotations refer to the New Zealand bird.
1882. T. H. Potts, `Out in the Open,' p. 122:
"<i>Athene Albifacies</i>, wekau of the Maoris, is known by some up-country settlers as the big owl or <i>laughing jackass</i>."
"The cry of the laughing jackass . . . Why it should share with one of our petrels and the great <i>Dacelo</i> of Australia the trivial name of laughing jackass, we know not; if its cry resembles laughter at all, it is the uncontrollable outburst, the convulsive shout of insanity; we have never been able to trace the faintest approach to mirthful sound in the unearthly yells of this once mysterious night-bird."
1888. W. L. Buller, `Birds of New Zealand,' vol. i. p. 198: