Amongst the Encounter Bay natives "no mother will venture to bring up more than two children, because she considers that the attention which she would have to devote to them would interfere with what she regards as the duty to her husband in searching for roots, etc."[654] [654] Meyer in Woods, pp. 186, 187. Amongst the Adelaide tribes "female infants at birth are not infrequently put to death for the sake of more valuable boys who are still being suckled."[655] [655] Wyatt in Woods, p. 162. As justification of infanticide "women plead that they cannot suckle and carry two children together."[656] It is clear from this statement that the impossibility of suckling more than one child at a time is given as justification for infanticide by the _natives themselves_; and that it is not only an inference of the observer. [656] Chas. Wilhelmi, quoted by Br. Smyth, i. p. 51. (Port Lincoln Tribes.) Infanticide was practised among the Port Lincoln tribes. "In extenuation of this horrible practice the women allege that they cannot suckle and carry two babies at once."[657] This statement also quite unmistakably points to the fact that children were suckled and attended by their own mother. [657] Schürmann in Woods, p. 224. Bennett writes that among the New South Wales natives women practice infanticide in order to avoid too much trouble in carrying their infants about.[658] [658] _Loc. cit._, i. pp. 123, 124. Another statement, maintaining still more strongly the view that only the mother suckled her child, is that of Collins.[659] He says that he knew two instances in which infants were killed by the father at their mother's grave, the reason alleged being that as no one else could be found to suckle the child and to rear it it must have died a worse death. Collins supposes that this is a general custom. [659] Collins, i. pp. 607, 608. Gason states that among the Dieri nearly thirty per cent. of the children were destroyed by their mothers at birth to avoid the cares and trouble of rearing.[660] [660] In Woods, p. 258. "The Arunta native does not hesitate to kill a child--always directly it is born--if there be an older one still in need of nourishment from the mother; and suckling is continued up to the age of three years and even older."[661] And again: "The child is killed ... when the mother is ... unable to rear it owing to there being a young child whom she is still feeding."[662] [661] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 264. [662] _Ibid._, p. 51. Among the Kabi and Wakka: "The motive for infanticide with these tribes could not be to save food in times of dearth, for the food supply was constant and plentiful. It would be mainly, if not entirely, that mothers might escape the irksomeness of nursing and caring for infants and of carrying them on their frequent journeys."[663]