Page:ChroniclesofEarlyMelbournevol.2.pdf/280

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THE CHRONICLES OF EARLY MELBOURNE.

and Henry Clegg. O n e of them lived in Bourke Street, near the first wooden theatre, on the site of Hosie's popular Pie-shop, and the other in Little Bourke Street, rearward of the Post Office. Though the Aborigines of Port Phillip ate various kinds of the testacea and crustacea, such as fresh and salt water mussel, periwinkle, limpet, cockle, sea-cucumber, & c , & c , m u c h doubt has been entertained as to oysters having formed any portion of their food, though the blacks in parts of Queensland were undoubtedly oyster eaters. Notwithstanding positive assertions to the contrary, I a m disposed to think that the Port Phillipians fed on oysters—shells of which were found in abundance at the place n o w known as Greenwich, near Williamstown, on the shores of Corio Bay, and other coast localities. Heaps of them used to be dug out of the water-banks, and small vessels were employed to dredge for them, as material for lime. T h e lime employed in the original buildings was procured by piling a heap of such shells on large blazing logs, when they were speedily transfused into a lime as white and fine almost as flour. Captain Fermaner has assured m e that he found oyster-shells in some native camps, and they were evidently not brought there as empty ornaments, but for a more necessary purpose. S o m e immense deposits of large coarse cockle-shells were also discovered, and it is difficult to believe that whilst the cockle-fish was swallowed, the other and more savoury edible was thrown away.