leaves were hundreds of small white
butterflies, with here and there a black and yellow-banded dragon-fly--
"horse-stingers" the Australian youth call them. Not a sound broke the
silence, except now and then the rippling splash of a fish rising to
the surface, or the peculiar _click, click_ made by a crayfish burrowing
under a stone.

I leant over the bank and looked down, and then gave a start of
pleasure, for right beneath me were three fish floating motionless on
the surface--fish that, until then, I never knew lived in fresh water.
They were in shape, colour, and appearance exactly like the toothed gar
so common on the sea coast--a long slender body with back of dark blue,
sides of silvery white, and fins and tail of blue tipped with yellow. I
was so excited that I was about to shoot them, but remembered that at so
short a distance I should have only blown them to pieces, especially as
they were directly beneath me. I motioned to the blackboys to come and
look; they did so, and I learnt that these fish, when the creek was
low, were sometimes plentiful, and would take almost any floating bait,
especially if it were alive.

Eager to begin, I told the boys to collect some crayfish for bait, but
they said that it would take too long, and small fish were better, and
running to some small lily-covered pools about two feet in diameter, and
very shallow, they jumped in and stirred up the sand and muddy sediment
at the bottom. In a few minutes some scores of very pretty red and
silvery-hued minnows were thrown out on the sand. I quickly baited my
line, and threw it, with the sinker attached, into the centre of the
pool; before it could sink the bait was taken by a fine bream of 2
lbs., which I landed safely, and tossed to the boys. It was the first
fresh-water bream I had caught in Queensland, and I felt elated.

Finding that the pool was clear of snags, I bent on three extra hooks,
baiting each one with the whole of a tiny fish. Again the baits were
seized before they reached the bottom; I hauled in two more bream, and
as they came struggling and splashing into the shallow water I saw they
were being followed by literally hundreds of the same species, and also
by fish much like an English grayling--the pool seemed to be alive!
The presence of such large numbers in so circumscribed a space could,
however, be easily accounted for by the absence of rain for so many
months, the drying up of many minor pools and stretches, an