BUSHRANGERS, the name given to the Australian brig ands (at first escaped convicts) who, in the early 19th century, took refuge in the "bush" and, supporting themselves by plunder, terrorized the scattered inhabitants. Their activities were checked by the Bushranging Act, passed in New South Wales in 183o (re newed 1834) . Later the gold discoveries made highway robbery a profitable enterprise, and a recrudescence of bushranging took place in the middle of the century; nor was it finally stamped out till the annihilation of the Kelly gang in 187o. (See KELLY, EDWARD.) See F. A. Hare, The Last of the Bushrangers (1892) ; G. E. Boxall, Australian Bushrangers (3rd ed., 1908).
the name given to a family of birds (Xeni cidae) confined to the highland forests of New Zealand. There are five species of these tiny, wren-like forms, placed in three genera (Xenicus, Acanthidositta and Traversia).