noun

• 1The practice of rounding up or stealing unbranded livestock from remote areas.

  ‘everybody does a spot of gully-raking now and then’

  More example sentences

  • ‘I was gully-raking with a mate in the mountains at the back of Richmond.’
  • ‘I had now to resort to what is termed moonlighting and gully-raking.’
  • ‘Cattle duffing and gully-raking for wandered livestock were in some cases a prelude to bushranging.’
  • ‘Gully-raking, or sheep and cattle stealing, was common in most districts.’
  • ‘It was my first attempt at gully-raking, leaving my stock-keeper to do his master's share of the work.’

• 2The practice of searching for surface gold.

  ‘gold-mining on this field is now confined to gully-raking’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The principal work has been mere gully-raking or surfacing in the bed of the creek.’
  • ‘Where gullies were worked to a shallow depth, the process was known as 'gully raking'.’
  • ‘The fossicker goes gully-raking into old gullies and worked-out creeks.’
  • ‘At present there are 13 men gully-raking a mile from the junction with the river.’
  • ‘At Gowrie Creek, much of the work is really only surfacing or gully raking.’