1884. E. P. Ramsay, `Fisheries Exhibition Literature,' vol. v. p. 308:
"Known among the fishermen of Port Jackson as the `nannagai,' or as it is sometimes spelt `nannygy.' It is a most delicious fish, always brings a high price, but is seldom found in sufficient numbers."
<hw>Nardoo</hw>, or <hw>Nardu</hw>, <i>n</i>. aboriginal word for the sporocarp of a plant, <i>Marsilea quadrifolia</i>, Linn., used as food by the aboriginals, and sometimes popularly called <i>Clover-fern</i>. The explorers Burke and Wills vainly sought the means of sustaining life by eating flour made from the spore-cases of nardoo. "Properly <i>Ngardu</i> in the Cooper's Creek language (Yantruwunta)." (A. W. Howitt.) Cooper's Creek was the district where Burke and Wills perished. In South Australia <i>Ardoo</i> is said to be the correct form.
1861. `Diary of H. J. Wills, the Explorer,' quoted in Brough Smyth's `Aborigines of Victoria,' p. 216:
"I cannot understand this nardoo at all; it certainly will not agree with me in any form. We are now reduced to it alone, and we manage to get from four to five pounds a day between us. . . . It seems to give us no nutriment. . . . Starvation on nardoo is by no means very unpleasant, but for the weakness one feels and the utter inability to move oneself, for, as far as appetite is concerned, it gives me the greatest satisfaction."
1862. Andrew Jackson, `Burke and the Australian Exploring Expedition of 1860,' p. 186:
"The [wheaten] flour, fifty pounds of which I gave them, they at once called `whitefellow nardoo,' and they explained that they understood that these things were given to them for having fed King."
1865. W. Howitt, `Discovery in Australia,' vol. ii. p. 247:
"They now began to inquire of the blacks after the nardoo seed, imagining it the produce of a tree; and received from the natives some of their dried narcotic herbs, which they chew, called pitchery. They soon found the nardoo seed in abundance, on a flat, and congratulated themselves in the idea that on this they could subsist in the wilderness, if all other food failed, a hope in which they were doomed to a great disappointment."
1877. F. von Mueller, `Botanic Teachings,' p. 130: