e Chinese fishermen about
Cooktown and Townsville often have their nets destroyed by a saw-fish
enfolding himself in them. Alligators, by the way, do the same thing
there, and are sometimes captured, perfectly helpless, in the folds of
the nets, in which they have rolled themselves over and over again,
tearing it beyond repair with their feet, but eventually yielding to
their fate.

The schnapper, the best of all Australian fish, is too well known to
English visitors to describe in detail. Most town-bred Australians
generally regard it as a purely ocean-loving fish, or at least only
frequenting very deep waters in deep harbours, such as Sydney, Jervis
Bay, and Twofold Bay. This is quite a mistake, for in many of the
rivers, twenty or more miles up from the sea, the writer and many other
people have not only caught these beautiful fish, but seen fishermen
haul in their nets filled with them. But they seldom remain long,
preferring the blue depths of ocean to the muddy bottoms of tidal
rivers, for they are rock-haunting and surf-loving.

Of late years the northern bar harbours and rivers of New South Wales
have been visited by a fish that in my boyhood's days was unknown even
to the oldest fisherman--the bonito. Although in shape and size they
exactly resemble the ocean bonito of tropic seas, these new arrivals are
lighter in colour, with bands of marbled grey along the sides and belly.
They bite freely at a running bait--_i.e.,_ when a line is towed astern,
and are very good when eaten quite fresh, but, like all of the mackerel
tribe, rapidly deteriorate in a few hours after being caught. The
majority of the coast settlers will not eat them, being under the idea
that, as they are all but scaleless, they are "poisonous." This silly
impression also prevails with regard to many other scaleless fish on the
Australian coast, some of which, such as the trevally, are among the
best and most delicate in flavour. The black and white rock cod is also
regarded with aversion by the untutored settlers of the small coast
settlements, yet these fish are sold in Sydney, like the schnapper, at
prohibitive prices.

In conclusion, let me advise any one who is contemplating a visit to
Australia, and means to devote any of his time to either river or sea
fishing, to take his rods with him; all the rest of his tackle he can
buy as cheap in the colonies as he can in England. Rods are but little
used in salt-water fishing in Australia, and a