"The musk-tree scents the evening air
Far down the leafy vale."
<hw>Musk-wood</hw>, <i>n</i>. See <i>Musk-tree</i>.
<hw>Mussel</hw>, <i>n</i>. Some Australasian species of this mollusc are— <i>Mytilus latus</i>, Lamark., Victoria, Tasmania, and New Zealand; <i>M. tasmanicus</i>, Tenison Woods, Tasmania; <i>M. rostratus</i>, Dunker, Tasmania and Victoria; <i>M. hirsutus</i>, Lamark., Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria, New Zealand; <i>M. crassus</i>, Tenison-Woods, Tasmania.
Fresh-water Mussels belong to the genus <i>Unio</i>.
<hw>Mutton-bird</hw>, <i>n</i>. The word is ordinarily applied to the Antarctic Petrel, <i>AEstrelata lessoni</i>. In Australasia it is applied to the Puffin or Short-tailed Petrel, <i>Puffinus brevicaudus</i>, Brandt. The collection of the eggs of this Petrel, the preparation of oil from it, the salting of its flesh for food, form the principal means of subsistence of the inhabitants, half-caste and other, of the islands in Bass Straits.
1839. W. Mann, `Six Years' Residence in the Australian Provinces,' p. 51:
"They are commonly called <i>mutton</i> birds, from their flavour and fatness; they are migratory,and arrive in Bass's Straits about the commencement of spring, in such numbers that they darken the air."
1843. J. Backhouse, `Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies' (1832), p. 73:
"Mutton birds were in such vast flocks, that, at a distance, they seemed as thick as bees when swarming."
Ibid. p. 91: