Captain Grey remarks, in volume 2, of his travels, page 261-- "Generally speaking, the natives live well; in some districts there may at particular seasons of the year be a deficiency of food, but if such is the case, these tracts are, at those times, deserted.

It is, however, utterly impossible for a traveller or even for a strange native to judge whether a district affords an abundance of food, or the contrary; for in traversing extensive parts of Australia, I have found the sorts of food vary from latitude to latitude, so that the vegetable productions used by the Aborigines in one are totally different to those in another; if, therefore, a stranger has no one to point out to him the vegetable productions, the soil beneath his feet may teem with food, whilst he starves.

The same rule holds good with regard to animal productions; for example, in the southern parts of the continent the Xanthorrea affords an inexhaustible supply of fragrant grubs, which an epicure would delight in, when once he has so far conquered his prejudices as to taste them; whilst in proceeding to the northward, these trees decline in health and growth, until about the parallel of Gantheaume Bay they totally disappear, and even a native finds himself cut off from his ordinary supplies of insects; the same circumstances taking place with regard to the roots and other kinds of food at the same time, the traveller necessarily finds himself reduced to cruel extremities.

A native from the plains, taken into an elevated mountainous district near his own country, for the first time, is equally at fault.
"But in his own district a native is very differently situated; he knows exactly what it produces, the proper time at which the several articles are in season, and the readiest means of procuring them.

According to these circumstances he regulates his visits to the different portions of his hunting ground; and I can only state that I have always found the greatest abundance in their huts." It is evident therefore that a European or even a stranger native would perish in a district capable of supplying the necessaries of life, simply because he had not the experience necessary to direct him where to search for food, or judgment to inform him what article might be in season at the particular time of his visit.