6o SALT-WATER FISHES 



earlier practice of spearing land animals, and the idea of netting 

 fish probably emanated in the brain of some Asiatic from the 

 older practice of netting birds. All fishing originated in all 

 probability in inland waters, river or lake, for, so far at least 

 as concerns the use of boats, there is some evidence to show 

 that mankind took ages of familiarising with the treacherous 

 sea before trusting to its waters. Whereas the modern settlers 

 in Australia are only just now reaping the results of the 

 extensive introduction of salmonidas and other European and 

 American fishes into the rivers of that continent, and have 

 hitherto angled only in the sea, it was not so with the 

 aboriginal inhabitants, and the writer has seen ancient traps 

 and fish-passes which testify to a considerable degree of fishing 

 skill on the part of the inventors of the boomerang, the most 

 wonderful implement of war and the chase ever devised by 

 untaught savages. The Japanese and Malays have also been 

 great sea fishermen for countless ages, while the more stay-at- 

 home Chinese, on the other hand, have won a reputation rather 

 for their inland fish culture. So far as Europe goes, Britain 

 has to-day the greatest stake in the fisheries of the North Sea, 

 but there was a time in which she was certainly surpassed by 

 Holland; and equalled by France. 



The use of hook and line is a more or less simple manner 

 of fishing that needs very little explanation. With local 

 variations, it resolves itself into capturing the fish on a barbed 

 hook hidden in some kind of bait, natural or artificial, calcu- 

 lated to attract the particular fish sought. The hook is used 

 on hand-lines or long lines, the latter, which may carry a couple 

 of thousand hooks, being laid either across a bay or estuary, 

 or in deeper water, on the sand. There is a heavy leaden 

 sinker at either end, with a buoy-line and corks with small 

 flags, so that the owners may pick up either end without 

 difficulty and haul the line on board. Such a line is baited 

 with squid, pilchard, herring, whelk, or lugworm, and the 

 baiting of a long line with two thousand hooks might, when 



