128 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



rocks ill the Barwon River near that station, aud about twenty- 

 five miles above Brewarrina, but they have now disappeared." 

 Relative to those I saw in tlie Darlino^ River, at Newfound- 

 land, below Loutli, in coinpanj' witli Mr. Etherid^e, in 1908, I 

 enclose the following letter fi'oin Mr. Hubeit Murray, of Bells- 

 grove, Louth : — " Re the aboriginal fish-traps near Newfound- 

 laud, they are not in existence now, having gradually washed 

 away. The principal yards were about three miles below 

 Newfoundland and some smaller ones about five miles lower 

 down." 



These fiah-traps, formed of boulders and stones, relics of a 

 bygone age, probably before the advent of the white man in 

 Australia, were used throughout the greater of the eastern 

 portions of the continent, being found in New South Wales, 

 Queensland, and the Northern Territory. " The Fisheries " 

 at Brewarrina, a splendid specimen, even now, of concei-ted 

 and combined aboriginal work, is over five hundred miles 

 inland, but it is remarkable in the northern portions of the 

 continent, where they are more numerous, they are more com- 

 mon in the coastal districts aud contiguous islands, occurring 

 also throughout many islands of Torres Strait, almost, if not 

 quite, to the coast of New Guinea. I give the following brief 

 extracts from scientific journals relative to some of them. 



The Hon. John Douglas, C.M.G., in an addenda to his article 

 on "The Islands of Torres Straits" states^ : — "He omitted to 

 mention in his papei' that there were some interesting remains 

 of great fishing weirs on Darnley Island — great walls which 

 had been built for catching fish. The present natives could 

 not tell anything about them. They had been built by some 

 previous generation, of which the records were lost now." 



Major A. J. Boyd, who wrote the " Narrative of Captain 

 G. Pennefather's Exploration" in H.:M.Q.S. VearJ in the Gulf 

 of Carpentaria in 1880, from Captain Pennefather's notes, re- 

 marks-* : — " In the afternoon they landed on Point Parker. The 

 landing is not a particularly good one, as it is fringed by rocks 

 and stones for a quarter of a mile from the beach 



- Dou<?las — Proc. Geogr. Soc. of Aii.sti-., Queeusld. Braufh. i.. 1H8H, 

 p. 88. 



:• Boyd — Pi'ou. Roy. Cieugr. Hoc. Austr., (^ueeuskl. Braiicli, xi., 1896, 

 pp. 56-7. 



