drooping shrub
with bell-shaped spotted flowers, having a horrible smell. The wood is
very pliable. It is sometimes used instead of the sacred Dheal at
funerals.

Two of the fishermen take the net into the creek, one at each end; they
stand in a rather shallow place, holding the net upright in the water.
Some other blacks go up stream and splash about, frightening the fish
down towards the net. When those holding the net feel the fish in it,
they fold the two sticks together and bring the net out.

To catch fish they also make small weirs and dams of stones, with
narrow passages of stones leading to them. The fish are swept by the
current into these yards, and there either caught by the blacks with
their hands, or speared. The most celebrated of these stone fish-traps
is at Brewarrina on the Barwon. It is said to have been made by Byamee,
the god and culture-hero of these people, and his giant sons. He it was
who established the rule that there should be a camping-ground in
common for the various tribes where, during the fishing festival, peace
should be strictly kept, all meeting to enjoy the fish, to do their
share towards preserving the fisheries.

Each tribe has its particular yards; for another to take fish from
these is theft. Each tribe keeps its yards in repair, replacing stones
removed by floods, and so on.

These stony fish mazes are fully two hundred yards in length,
substantially built; some huge boulders are amongst the stones which
form these most intricate labyrinthine fish yards, which as traps are
eminently successful, many thousands of Murray cod and other fish being
caught in them.

Dingo pups, in the days when dingoes were plentiful, were a most
esteemed delicacy. To eat dog is dangerous for a woman, as causing
increased birth-pangs; that suggests dog must be rather good eating,
some epicure wirreenun scaring women off it by making that assertion.

Ant larv', a special gift from some spirit in the stars, and frogs, are
also thought good by camp epicures.

The blacks smear themselves over with the fat of fish or of almost any
game they catch. It is supposed to keep their limbs supple, and give
the admired ebony gloss to their skins which, by the way, are very fine
grained. After a flood, when the water is running out of the
tributaries of the creek, the blacks make a bough break beginning on
each bank and almost meeting in the middle; across the gap they place a
fishing-net which folds in li