Meston notes that in making his dictionary Professor Morris of Melbourne has 'started to explain the origin of some of our Aboriginal words, and, as a matter of course will drift into the usual grotesque blunders.' Meston's object accordingly is to 'fix the authentic origin of a few well-known Australian words.' His sources are vocabularies recorded from Bennelong of Sydney and from Walwarra of George's River, whose words were noted in 1803 by Thomas Jarret Ives. Both vocabularies were printed at the Sydney Gazette office in 1809.
However the words glossed in the article belong also to tribal areas beyond Sydney, including the Clarence River district and Moreton Bay and the Endeavour River in Queensland.