During a visit to the Murrumbidgee and Tumat countries, as well as other parts of the colony, I availed myself of every opportunity to procure information regarding acts of infanticide, as existing among the aborigines of this country. I succeeded in ascertaining that infants were frequently destroyed: sometimes the reason assigned was some personal defect in the infant,[45] (whence we may attribute the fact of a deformed person being seldom seen among native tribes,) or the mother not wishing to have the trouble of carrying it about: the female children were more frequently destroyed than the males. I heard of a weak and sickly child having been destroyed, and even eaten: the reason given by the unnatural parents was, that they were very hungry, and the child no use and much trouble; one redeeming quality, however, was, that they displayed a sense of shame when acknowledging the fact, and gave the reason for which they had committed so barbarous an act. It is seldom they will confess having destroyed their offspring: one, however, who had a child by an European, acknowledged it readily; and the reason given for the commission was its being _like a warragul, or native dog_. This was because the infant, like its papa, had a “carroty poll,” and thus resembled, in colour, the hair of the native dog, which is certainly not so handsome as the dark black locks of the aboriginal tribes. Although addicted to infanticide, they display, in other instances, an extraordinary degree of affection for their dead offspring, evidenced by an act that almost exceeds credibility, had it not so often been witnessed among the tribes in the interior of the colony. I allude to the fact of deceased children, from the earliest age to even six or seven years, being placed in a bag, made of kangaroo skin, and slung upon the back of the mother, who, besides this additional burden, carries her usual _netbul_, or _culy_,[46] for provisions, &c. They carry them thus for ten or twelve months, sleeping upon the mass of mortal remains, which serves them for a pillow, apparently unmindful of the horrid fœtor which emanates from such a putrifying substance. Habit must reconcile them to it, for a woman carrying such a burden, may be “nosed” at a long distance before seen; and a stranger, unacquainted with this native custom, will see a woman with a large pack upon her back, from which such an odour proceeds, as to make him doubt from what it can be produced. When the body becomes dry, or only the bones left, the remains are burnt, buried, or placed into a hollow trunk or limb of a tree: in the latter instance covering the opening carefully with stones, &c. All the information that could be procured from them respecting this disgusting custom, was, “that they were afraid, if they buried them, the _Buckee_, or devil-devil would take them away.” When the adults among the aborigines die, the body is consigned to the hollow trunk of a tree, cave, or in the ground,