387 ANTHROPOLOGICAL NOTES. Bv PviciiD. Helms. (Commttnicdtpd hij the Secretary.) (Plates xxix.-xxx.) Introductory Remarks. The following notes are to a great extent compiled from com-munications I ha\ e from time to time received from old settlers who in their early days frequently came in contact with the Aborigines inhabiting the neighbourhood of their settlements, and who remember the habits and customs of these extinct or decaying tribes. Special thanks I owe to Mr. John Barry, Senr., who settled on the Mowamba Ri^er more than forty years ago, aiid from whose store of vivid recollections I have drawn a great many of the facts now set down. It is to be regretted that the narratives are but fragmentary yet I consider them sufficiently interesting to be recorded, more especially on account of the comparisons that may be drawn between the manners described and those of other Australian tribes. I do not intend to dilate upon this subject, but merely wish to remark that, viewing the manners and customs described from a general aspect, it l^ecomes apparent that they are very similar, and that they originated in common with those of the great bulk of the other Australian aboriginal tribes. The tribes here spoken of differed from most of their compatriots in the neglect of some widespread customs rather than in the practice of peculiar rites. I am alluding to the rites of circumcision and of the mika operation, neither of which were practised by the tribes that lived in the
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