an owl. Ninox boobook (see Owl); Athene boobook (Gould's `Birds ofAustralia,' vol.i. pl. 32).» From cry or note of bird. In theMukthang language of Central Gippsland, BawBaw, the mountain inGippsland, is this word as heard by the English ear.«(A. W. Howitt.) In South Australia the word is used for a mopoke.
1827. Vigors and Horsfield, `Transactions of LinnaeanSociety,' vol. xv. p. 188:
«The native name of this bird, as Mr. Caley informs us, isBuck'buck. It may be heard nearly every night during winter,uttering a cry, corresponding with that word. . . .The lowerorder of the settlers in New South Wales are led away by theidea that everything is the reverse in that country to what itis in England : and the cuckoo, as they call this bird, singingby night, is one of the instances which they point out.»
1894. `The Argus,' June 23, p. 11, col. 4:
«In most cases – – it may not be in all – – the familiar call, whichis supposed to sound like `More-pork,' is not the mopoke (orpodargus) at all, but the hooting of a little rusty redfeather-legged owl, known as the Boobook. Its double note isthe opposite of the curlew, since the first syllable is dweltupon and the second sharp. An Englishman hearing it for thefirst time, and not being told that the bird was a `more-pork,'would call it a night cuckoo.»