[f. LEATHER sb. + JACKET.]
1. A name given to various fishes, having a thick skin; e.g., Balistes capriscus, Oligoplites saurus, and species of Monacanthus.
1770. Cook, Jrnl., 5 May (1893), 246. They had caught a great number of small fish, which the sailors call leather jackets on account of their having a very thick skin.
1789. W. Tench, Exped. Botany Bay, xv. 129. To this may be added bass, mullet, skait, soles, leather-jackets, and many other species.
1883. E. P. Ramsay, Food-Fishes N. S. Wales, 31 (Fish. Exhib. Publ.). The ‘leather jackets,’ Monacanthus, are the only members of this family [Sclerodermi] used as food.
1884. Goode, etc., Fish. & Fish. Industr. U.S., I. 172. The Leather-jacket of Pensacola, Balistes capriscus, called ‘Trigger Fish’ in the Carolinas. Ibid., 332. The Leather-jacket—Oligoplites saurus.
2. Austral. A kind of pancake.
1846. G. H. Haydon, Five Y. Australia, vi. 151. A plentiful supply of ‘leather jackets’ (dough fried in a pan).
1855. R. Howitt, Two Y. Victoria, I. 117 (Morris). The leather-jacket … is equal to any muffin you can buy in the London shops.
3. Austral. A name applied to various trees, on account of the toughness of their bark, e.g., Eucalyptus punctata (Morris).
1874. Treas. Bot., Suppl., Leather-jacket of New South Wales, Eucalyptus resinifera.
4. The grub of the crane-fly.
1881. Eleanor A. Ormerod, Man. Injur. Insects, 66.
1898. R. Kearton, Wild Life at Home, 76. I watched a female [starling] collecting ‘leather-jackets’ on a newly-mown lawn last July.
