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Abstract
When Europeans arrived in Australia, galahs were typically inland birds, quite sparsely distributed. Now they range from coast to coast, and are common. Why did this change occur? Why didn't it occur earlier? I argue that because galahs feed on the ground they found Australia's dominant inland grasses too tall to get at the seed, so relied on an agency to shorten them: Aboriginal grain cropping before contact, introduced stock after it.
Notes
A longer version of this article, at http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004, has many more references, quotes and argument, especially concerning foraging districts outside Tindale's arc. I thank Ed Duyker, Mary Eagle, Kerri Elgar, Barney Foran, Jean Fornasiero, Tom Gara, Peter Gifford, Jack Golson, Dick Kimber, Rob Linn, John McEntee, Stuart Macintyre, Henry Nix, Jim Noble, Libby Robin, Ian Rowley, Denis Saunders and Michel Tranier for generous help with aspects of this article.
1John Oxley, Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of NSW [1820] (Adelaide: State Library, 1964), 95–96; Ida Lee, Early Explorers in Australia (London: Methuen, 1925), 252.
2Galah 1817 PIC T1623 LOC 709; pigeon 1819? T1624 LOC 710, National Library of Australia (NLA).
3 Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle (Paris: Chez Deterville, 1817), vol. 17, 12.
4Ian Rowley, 13 July 2006, quoting label 1540 in the Museum National d'Histoire naturelle du Paris (MNHN), confirmed Michel Tranier, MNHN, 18 Sep 2006.
5Ian Rowley, 9 May 2002; Ian Rowley, Behavioural Ecology of the Galah… in WA (Sydney: Surrey Beatty, 1990), 3. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
5814 040, Lesueur Collection, Museum d'Histoire naturelle du Havre. I thank Jean Fornasiero for this reference, which she found in an obscure place after searching for more than a year.
59T. L. Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia [1839] (Adelaide: Libraries Board, 1965), vol. 2, 62, 141–142.
61George Bennett, Gatherings of a Naturalist (London: John van Voorst, 1860), 277.
62McKinlay, Journal, 35 (28 Dec 1861); Gulah 59, 88, 100 (4 Mar, 6, 27 May 1862).
64Information John McEntee, Erudina Station, SA, 15 Aug. 2007.
65Stokes, Discoveries, vol. 1, 481; H. M. Whittell, The Literature of Australian Birds (Perth: Paterson Brokensha, 1954), pt. 1, 100–107.
66Elsey to Gould, 29 Sep 1857, Gould Papers MS1217, NLA. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
67Margaret Goyder Kerr, The Surveyors (Adelaide: Rigby, 1971), 48–49, 119.
68J. D. Woods (ed.), The Native Tribes of South Australia (Adelaide: Libraries Board, 1998), 311–312.
69G. Masters, ‘Notes on a Collection of Birds from Port Darwin’, Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of NSW [PLSNSW], (1878), 274. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
70A. H. Chisholm, ‘John Gilbert and Some Letters to Gould’, Emu, 38 (1938), 195–197.
71Stokes, Discoveries, vol. 1, 381–401; Whittell, Literature, pt. 1, 96, 114–115.
72G. M. Storr, List of Northern Territory Birds (Perth: Government Printer, 1966), 33.
73Whittell, Literature, pt. 1, 61–62, 70–72, 75.
74E. P. Ramsay, ‘List of WA birds Collected… at Derby and its Vicinity’, PLSNSW (2nd series), (1886), 1096.
75F. M. House in F. S. Brockman, Report on Exploration of the North-West Kimberley 1901, WAPP 2/1902, appendix C, 53; G. M. Mathews, ‘On the Birds of North-West Australia’, Emu, 9 (1909–1910), 4–16, 53–65, 238–241. See also R. J. Sholl, ‘Journal of an Expedition… in North-Western Australia’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 36 (1866), 203–227.
76H. M. Whittell, ‘A Review of the Work of John Gilbert in WA’, Emu, 42 (1942), 112–129, 216–242, 289–305.
77Gould, Handbook, vol. 2, 9–10.
78Elsey to Gould, 29 Sep 1857, Gould Papers MS1217, NLA. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
79P. J. Higgins (ed.), Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998), vol. 4, 106; Rowley, Behavioural Ecology, 3; D. L. Serventy and H. M. Whittell, Birds of WA (Perth: UWA Press, 1976), 53, 61, 276; F. L. Whitlock, ‘On the East Murchison’, Emu, 9 (1910), 192.
80T. Carter, ‘Birds Occurring in the Region of the North-West Cape’, Emu, 3 (1903), 172.
83Gould, Handbook, vol. 2, 8–9.
84John Gould, Introduction to the Birds of Australia (London: J. Gould, 1848), 71.
85Gould, Handbook, vol. 2, 8–9.
86Sturt, Narrative, vol. 2 appendix, 36.
87Hermann Beckler, Journey to Cooper's Creek (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1993), 146.
88B. H. Babbage and P. E. Warburton, Northern Explorations, SAPP 151/1858, 10.
89Murray, Report, SAPP 43/1904, 39 (24 Aug. 1902).
90Higgins, Handbook, 105.
92Norman B. Tindale, Aboriginal Tribes of Australia (California: University of California Press, 1974), 99. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
94Daniel George Brock, To the Desert with Sturt (Adelaide: Royal Geographical Society, 1975), 25; Bowen Historical Society, The Story of James Morrill [1863] (Bowen: Historical Society, 1965), chap 3 n.p.; Eric Rolls, Visions of Australia (Melbourne: Lothian, 2002), 193–194.
95J. R. B. Love, Stone Age Bushmen of Today (London: Blackie, 1936), 77, also 15–16, 71.
96Morrill, Story, chap 3 n.p. See also E.J. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions… [1845] (Adelaide: Libraries Board, 1964), vol. 2, 62.
97P. M. Veth and F. J. Walsh, ‘The Concept of “Staple” Plant Foods in the Western Desert’, Australian Aboriginal Studies [AAS], (1988/2), 20–22; Walsh in D. A. Saunders et al. (eds), Australian Ecosystems (Proceedings of the Ecological Society of Australia 16) (Sydney: Surrey Beatty, 1990), 28–29.
98Scott Cane in D. R. Harris and G. C. Hillman (eds), Foraging and Farming (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 99–102; Josephine Flood, Archaeology of the Dreamtime (Sydney: Collins, 1989), 237–238; Peter Latz, Bushfires and Bushtucker (Alice Springs: IAD Press, 1995), 53–56; Daphne Nash, ‘Aboriginal gardening: Plant Resource Management in Three Central Australian Communities’, ANU Anthropology MA (1993), 65; M. A. Smith, ‘The antiquity of seedgrinding in arid Australia’, Archaeology in Oceania, 21 (1986), 29.
99Phillip Clarke, ‘Contact, Conflict, and Regeneration…’, (PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 1994), 181–182; D. J. Mulvaney and J. Golson (eds), Aboriginal Man and Environment in Australia (Canberra: ANU Press, 1971), 205. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
100Compare Cane 111 with Jones and Meehan 125 in Harris and Hillman, Foraging.
101Harry Allen, ‘Where the Crow Flies Backwards: Man and Land in the Darling Basin’, (PhD thesis, ANU, 1972), 49, 73–76. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
102S. J. Hallam, Fire and Hearth (Canberra: AIAS, 1975); S. J. Hallam, ‘Yams, Alluvium and “Villages” on the West Coastal Plain’ in G. K. Ward (ed.), Archaeology at Anzaas, (Canberra: Archaeology Society, 1986), 116–132.
103Beth Gott, ‘Ecology of Root Use by the Aborigines of Southern Australia’, Archaeology in Oceania, 17 (1982), 59–67; Beth Gott, ‘Murnong – Microseris scapigera: A study of a Staple Food of Victorian Aborigines’, AAS, (1983/2), 2–18; Beth Gott, ‘Use of Victorian plants by Koories’ in D. B. Foreman and N. G. Walsh (eds), Flora of Victoria (Melbourne: Inkata, 1993), 1, 195–211; Beth Gott, ‘Aboriginal Fire Management in South-Eastern Australia – Aims and Frequency’, Journal of Biogeography, 32 (2005), 1203–1208.
104Grey in H. S. Chapman, The New Settlement of Australind (London: Harvey and Darton, 1841), 44; George Grey, Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery [1841] (Adelaide: Libraries Board, 1964), vol. 2, 8–12, 20.
106Burges in Rudolf Gerritsen, And Their Ghosts May be Heard (Fremantle: Arts Centre Press, 1994), 85–86.
107Harry Lourandos, Continent of Hunter-Gatherers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
111Mitchell, Three Expeditions, vol. 1, 237–238. Mitchell saw people digging for yams in the same area.
109Tindale, Aboriginal Tribes, 102; Tindale in R. V. S. Wright (ed.), Stone Tools as Cultural Markers (Canberra: AIAS, 1977), 347.
110Information Laurent Doussot, 18 June 2004; Nash, ‘Aboriginal Gardening’, 128–134.
113Mitchell, Journal, 90. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
112Mitchell, Journal, 60, also 89–90.
114Augustus Gregory in H. Ling Roth, ‘On the Origin of Agriculture’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16 (1886), 132. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
115On the same day and creek Brock saw people harvesting roots: Brock, To the Desert, 133–134.
116Sturt, Narrative, vol. 1, 294. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
117In P. G. Gresser, ‘Small Camp-Sites of the Aborigines – Central Western NSW’, Victorian Naturalist, 82 (1965), 233, also 234. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
118Gott, ‘Victorian Plants’, 196; Gott ‘Fire Management’; Neville Green, Nyungar – The People (Perth: Mt Lawley College, 1979), 138.
119Mitchell, Three Expeditions, vol. 1, 52, 315; Mitchell, Journal, 43–79.
120Christopher Giles, ‘The Adelaide and Port Darwin Telegraph Line’, Journal of the SA Electrical Society, 1–2 (Feb.–Nov. 1888), 7.
121A.C. Ashwin, ‘From South Australia to Port Darwin’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, SA Branch [JRGSA SA], 32 (1930–1931), 64.
122Ashwin, ‘Port Darwin’, 66. On storing see http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
124Higgins, Handbook, 104–105, 107.
125Gould, Handbook, vol. 2, 8–9.
126Oxley, Journals, 39–40, 87–95, 98; also Lee, Early Explorers, 252.
127Sturt, Two Expeditions, vol. 2, 59, 62.
128E. M. Curr, Recollections of Squatting in Victoria [1883] (Adelaide: Libraries Board, 1968), 186; E. M. Curr (ed.), The Australian Race (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1886), vol. 1, 289, 297, 302, 338, 422; vol. 2, 78–79, 378, 403; vol. 3, 20, 90, 161; Peter Donovan, A History of the Millewa Group of River Red Gum Forests (Sydney: State Forests, 1997), 15; Hawdon, Journal, 19, 21, 25; G. Krefft, ‘On the mManners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Lower Murray and Darling’, Transactions of the Philosophical Society of NSW, 1 (1866), 361, 370; Jan Penney, ‘Encounters on the River… 1820-1920’, (Ph.D. thesis, La Trobe University, 1989), 32, 36; Waterhouse, Eyre's Narrative, 179–181.
129Hawdon, Journal, 19, 21, 25; Waterhouse, Eyre's Narrative, 180–181.
130Stokes, Discoveries, vol. 1, 312.
131P. Sattler and R. Williams (eds), The Conservation Status of Queensland's Bioregional Ecosystems (Brisbane: EPA, 1999), 2/1.
132Elsey to Gould, 29 Sep 1857, MS1217.
133In Woods, Native Tribes, 259, also 257, 287–288.
134See text at n.114; Woods, Native Tribes, 286; Warwick Jones, ‘Up the Creek: Hunter-Gatherers in the Cooper Basin’, (Archaeology Honours Thesis, University of New England, 1979), 11, 42–44, 48, 77, 109; Wills, Successful Exploration, 188.
136S. R. Morton and D. J. Mulvaney (eds), Exploring Central Australia (Sydney: Surrey Beatty, 1996), 352–353; Mark Shephard, The Simpson Desert (Adelaide: Royal Geographical Society, 1992), 35.
137S. A. White, ‘A Central Australian Expedition’, Emu, 21 (1922), 92; S.A. White, ‘The Country Traversed by the Scientific Expedition of Professor Edgeworth David to the Finke River’, JRGSA SA, 24 (1923), 44.
138A. C. Robinson et al (ed.), A Biological Survey of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands South Australia (Adelaide: Department of Environment and Heritage, 2003), 259; G. M. Mathews, The Birds of Australia (London: Witherby, 1917), vol. 6 pt. 3, 227.
139J. B. Cleland, ‘Notes on Birds in Central Australia… Ayers Rock’, South Australian Ornithologist [SAO], 13 (1935), 193–194; J. B. Cleland, ‘Notes on Birds Seen Between Alice Springs and the Granites’, SAO, 14 (1938), 127. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
141Gould, Handbook, vol. 2, 139. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
142Serventy and Whittell, Birds of WA, 61, 277.
143For example Tim Low, The New Nature (Melbourne: Penguin, 2002), 130.
144Noel Butlin, Our Original Aggression (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1983), 24; Curr, Australian Race, vol. 1, 213–215, 252; vol. 2, 73; M. C. Hartwig, ‘The Progress of White Settlement in the Alice Springs District… 1870-94’ (PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 1965), 30–32; Mitchell, Three Expeditions, 307.
145Higgins, Handbook, 105–106.
146R. E. Johnstone and G. M. Storr, Handbook of WA Birds (Perth: WA Museum, 1998), 281. See also http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/48004.
147Mrs James Foott, Sketches of Life in the Bush (Sydney: Gibbs Shall, 1872), 13–14.
148Mathews, Birds, vol. 6 pt. 3, 228; Rowley, Behavioural Ecology, 5, 7–8, 11. In 1890 WA had 33,820 acres under wheat, mostly east or south-east of Perth: E. Dunsdorfs, The Australian Wheat-growing Industry (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1956), 533.
149T. Brown, ‘Nullarbor Plain’, JRGSA SA, 19 (1918), 141–153, esp. 147–148.
150J. B. Cleland, ‘Notes on the Birds of Ooldea’, SAO, 7 (1923), 17–21; A.S. Le Souef, ‘Notes on Birds seen…’ and ‘Notes on Birds Observed at Ebor and the Nullarbor Plain’, Emu, 20 (1921), 140–144, and 21 (1921), 125–128; S. A. White, ‘Four Ornithological Trips to the Nullarbor Plain’, Emu, 18 (1919); White, ‘Country Traversed’; F.L. Whitlock, ‘Notes from the Nullarbor Plain’, Emu, 21 (1922), 170–187; Whittell, Literature, pt. 2, 40.
151A. G. Bolam, The Trans-Australian Wonderland (Melbourne: McCubbin-James, 1923), 41.
152J. Ford and E. H. Sedgwick, ‘Bird Distribution in the Nullarbor Plain and Great Victoria Desert Region’, Emu, 67 (1967), 99–124; Mark Shephard, The Great Victoria Desert (Sydney: Reed, 1995), 52–53.
153C. G. Gibson, ‘Birds Observed Between Kalgoorlie and Eucla, WA’, Emu, 9 (1909), 76.
154J. N. McGilp, ‘Birds of the Nullarbor Plain’, SAO, 11 (1931), 150; J. B. Paton, ‘Birds of the Gawler Ranges’, SAO, 26 (1975), 183; J. Sutton, “An Ornithological Trip Around Eyre Peninsula”, SAO, 7 (1923), 132, 138–139.
156A. E. Newsome, ‘An Ecological Comparison of the Two Arid-Zone Kangaroos in Australia’, Quarterly Review of Biology, 50 (1975), esp. 394, 402, 408-10; Newsome in Morton and Mulvaney, Exploring, 287, 294–297.
157Alfred Norton, ‘On the Decadence of Australian Forests’, PRSQ, 3 (1887), 20.
158J. H. Leigh and J. C. Noble, Riverine Plain of NSW (Canberra: CSIRO, 1972), 21.
159Curr, Recollections, 85; Ian Lunt, Plains Wandering (Melbourne: National Parks Association, 1998), 29; C. W. E. Moore, ‘The Vegetation of the Southeast Riverina NSW’, Australian Journal of Botany, 1 (1953), 515, 517–518 map; R. M. Moore (ed), Australian Grasslands (Canberra: ANU Press, 1970), 78; Penney, Encounters, 241, 281; Eric Rolls, They All Ran Wild (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1984), 488; J. M. B. Smith (ed.), A History of Australasian Vegetation (Sydney: McGraw Hill, 1982), 123–124; Fred Turner, ‘Fodder Plants and Grasses of Australia’, Report 2 (Melbourne: Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, 1890), 588.
160Mitchell, Three Expeditions, vol. 1, 44, 110, 137–138, 141.
161Foott, Sketches, 13–14; Bill Gammage, Narrandera Shire (Adelaide: Bill Gammage, 1986), 42; Leigh and Noble, Riverine Plain, 21.
162Mary Durack, Kings in Grass Castles (London: Constable, 1959), esp. 212.
163Ramsay, ‘List of WA Birds’, 1096, continued 1887, 170.
164North, List, 169.
166Low, New Nature, 7–21, 60–71.
167Turner, ‘Fodder Plants’, 592–593. See also C. L. Davies et al., ‘Perennial Grain Crops for High Water Use’, Report 05/024 (Canberra: Rural Industries R and D Corporation, 2005), and its annotated bibliography, 21–28.