dy melon, or
bandicoot, all of which could be brought home alive. But after the
first day they can kill as they go along.

All day some birds come to the Dheelgoolee-pigeons, gilahs, young
crows, and others, and the man watching catches them. When the game was
thick on the net, the men in the holes would catch hold of the ends of
the sticks in the net and quickly turn them over the lower ends, thus
entrapping all on the net. In the evening turkeys and such things as
water at night-time, amongst which are opossums and paddy melons, would
be trapped.

Ducks were trapped, too, by making bough breaks across the shallow part
of the creek, with a net across the deep part from break to break. A
couple of the men would go up stream to hunt the ducks down, and some
would stay each side of the net armed with pieces of bark. The two
hunters up stream frightened the ducks off the water, and sent them
flying down stream to the trap. Should they seem flying too high as if
to pass, the blacks would throw the pieces of bark high in the air,
imitating, as they did so, the cry of hawks. Down the ducks would fly
turning back; some of the men would whistle like ducks, others would
throw bark again, giving the hawk's cry, which would frighten the
birds, making them double back into the net, where they were quickly
despatched by those waiting.

Murrahgul is another trap. This is a yard made all round a waterhole
with one opening; about this opening they will fasten, from stumps or
logs, strong strings with a slipping knot. The game, emu or kangaroo,
would probably step into one of these string nooses, would try to pull
its leg out; the harder it pulled the tighter the knot. Or the blacks
might have put a sort of cross-bar overhead at the entrance, with
hanging strings having a slip knot; in would go an emu's head, the bird
would rush on and be strangled.

Boobeen is a primitive cornet, a hollowed piece of Bibbil wood, one end
partially filled up with pine gum, and ornamented outside with
carvings. To blow through it is an art, and the result rather like a
big horn. The noise is said to be very like an emu's cry, and this emu
bugle will certainly, they say, draw towards it a gundooee, or solitary
emu.

The blacks used on the sandhills to make a deep hole to hide themselves
in, usually only one though. From this hole they would run out a drain
for about thirty yards. The man with the Boobeen would have a little
break of bushes round him