fossick

[T]he honorable member went to the Railway department, and fossicked about for information, and he found, forsooth, that there had been a little rise in the salary of a son of a member of the House.

The "fossicker" is one who wanders about old diggings, armed with a knife and pan, and who seldom sinks or drives, but "fossicks" or searches about the old heaps of dirt, or in the bottoms of deserted shafts and drives, keen-eyed after unobserved gold.