Hi Cas,
HANZAB gives "Noisy or Southern Black-backed Minah or Mynah" as one of
the common name synonyms. I would guess that the name "Miner" is a
corruption of Minah/Mynah.
Personally, I quite like the alternative theory that they were named
after the behaviour of a bunch of drunken gold diggers. Unfortunately
the Minah/Mynah corruption is probably correct.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
On 21/01/2012, at 8:12 AM, Cas Liber wrote:
I suppose it arose out of the bird's dark grey and black face
resembling a
coal-miner's blackened face (?) but have never seen it written, apart
from
gould's notes that the term "miner" came from Tasmania originally.
Anyone
seen anything written? Also for such a common bird, I've not seen much
aboriginal material, either names or folklore about it....
A couple of us have been developing the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_Miner
Cas
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