John Leonard wrote:
>
> This is a lexicographal point rather than an ornithological one; I
As far as I'm concerned, Dead Finish is a species of wattle, Acacia
tetragonophylla. It grows about 1.5 metres high, often lower and is
always green and always revoltingly prickly. It seems to grow all over
the inland deserts, often by watercourses. Zebra Finches nest in it.
Once fallen into, never forgotten!
The name is such because it is the very last thing that cattle will
eat - when they start on it in a drought, that is the end.
The seeds are edible; the blacks obtained them by cutting down or
pulling up the bushes, dragging them to a flat rock area, and leaving
them to dry out a bit before thrashing them to shake the seeds out. The
bushes could then be taken away and the seeds swept up, to be ground for
a sort of damper.
Anthea Fleming in Melbourne (where an Eastern Spinebill is imitating a
whistling kettle in the fuchsia)
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