<hw>Prickly Pine</hw>, <i>n</i>. See <i>Pine</i>.
<hw>Prickly Wattle</hw>, <i>n</i>. See <i>Wattle</i>.
<hw>Primage</hw>, <i>n</i>. The word is of old commercial use, for a small sum of money formerly paid to the captain or master of the ship, as his personal perquisite, over and above the freight charges paid to the owners or agents, by persons sending goods in a ship. It was called by the French <i>pot-de-vin du maitre</i>,—a sort of <i>pourboire</i>, in fact. Now-a-days the captain has no concern with the freight arrangements, and the word in this sense has disappeared. It has re-appeared in Australia under a new form. In 1893 the Victorian Parliament imposed a duty of one per cent. on the <i>Prime</i>, as the Customs laws call the first entry of goods. This tax was called <i>Primage</i>, and raised such an outcry among commercial men that in 1895 it was repealed.
<hw>Primrose, Native</hw>, <i>n</i>. The name is given in Tasmania to <i>Goodenia geniculata</i>, R. Br., <i>N.O. Goodeniaceae</i>. There are many species of <i>Goodenia</i> in Australia, and they contain a tonic bitter which has not been examined.
<hw>Prion</hw>, <i>n</i>. a sea-bird. See <i>Dove-Petrel</i>. (Grk. <i>priown</i>, a saw.) The sides of its bill are like the teeth of a saw.
1885. W. O. Legge, `Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science' (Brisbane), p. 448:
"The name Prion, as almost universally applied elsewhere to the
Blue Petrels, has been kept [in Australia] as an English name."
<HW>Prop</HW>, <i>v</i>. of a horse: to stop suddenly.
1870. E. B. Kennedy, `Four Years in Queensland,' p. 194:
"Another man used to teach his horse (which was free from vice) to gallop full speed up to the verandah of a house, and when almost against it, the animal would stop in his stride (or prop), when the rider vaulted lightly over his head on to the verandah."