cold dark night, and swim and
dive about amongst logs, stumps, roots, and weeds without ever hurting
themselves, and seldom failing to obtai the object of their search.

Turtle are procured in the same way, but generally by the men, and in the
day time.

Muscles of a very large kind are also got by diving. The women whose duty
it is to collect these, go into the water with small nets (len-ko) hung
round their necks, and diving to the bottom pick up as many as they can,
put them into their bags, and rise to the surface for fresh air,
repeating the operation until their bags have been filled. They have the
power of remaining for a long time under the water, and when they rise to
the surface for air, the head and sometimes the mouth only is exposed. A
stranger suddenly coming to the river when they were all below, would be
puzzled to make out what the black objects were, so frequently appearing
and disappearing in the water.

Cray-fish of the small kind (u-kod-ko) weighing from four to six ounces
are obtained by the women wading into the water as already described, or
by men wading and using a large bow-net, called a "wharro," which is
dragged along by two or three of them close to the bottom where the water
is not too deep.

Frogs are dug out of the ground by the women, or caught in the marshes,
and used in every stage from the tadpole upwards.

Rats are also dug out of the ground, but they are procured in the
greatest numbers and with the utmost facility when the approach of the
floods in the river flats compels them to evacuate their domiciles. A
variety is procured among the scrubs under a singular pile or nest which
they make of sticks, in the shape of a hay-cock, three or four feet high
and many feet in circumference. A great many occupy the same pile and are
killed with sticks as they run out.

Snakes, lizards and other reptiles are procured among the rocks or in the
scrubs. Grubs are got out of the gum-tree into which they eat their way,
as also out of the roots of the mimosa, the leaves of the zamia, the
trunk of the xanthorra, and a variety of other plants and shrubs.

One particularly large white grub, and a great bon-bouche to the natives,
is procured out of the ground. It is about four inches long and half an
inch in thickness, and is obtained by attaching a thin narrow hook of
hard wood to the long, wiry shoots of the polygonum, and then pushing
this gently down the hole through which the grub has bur