65 



first leave the fresh water ; and pelicans, whose feeding grounds are shallow 

 pools and nuul fiats, are now extremely rare. 



All our sea fish (with two exceptions) are harmless ; these exceptions are 

 the Banaoouta and Kingfish, closely allied forms, whose speed and ferocity are 

 truly wondei-f ul. They are both caught on our coasts in the autumn months, 

 the barracouta in the daytime, the kingfish at night. 



A short account of the means employed by fishermen to catch them will give 

 some faint notion of their fierce disposition. When the boat is becalmed or 

 going but slowly through the water in the neighborhood of a shoal, the fisher- 

 man arms himself with a light staff eight or ten feet long ; attached to the end 

 of this staff by a stout line two feet long is the jigger, a piece of cedar half an 

 inch thick, one inch wide, and with a stout nail driven through it in such a 

 manner as to form a rough hook without a barb. With this delicate tackle 

 the fisherman (who stands up in his boat) next proceeds to create the greatest 

 possible disturbance in the water close alongside by drawing the jigger rapitlly 

 along jthe surface with a waving or! jerking motion ; of a sudden the water 

 becomes alive with long gleaming fish, and, if the fisherman is new to the 

 sport, he will soon find himself engaged in a frantic struggle to remain in the 

 boat, while a glittering monster of some 18 or 20 pounds weight is just as anxious 

 to pull him out of it ; however with a little practice the men engaged rapidly 

 take an immense number of fish by this means, as they are just lifted over 

 the side, shaken off, and the jigger again immersed. The visits of these fish 

 to our coasts are, from unexplained causes, very irregular ; the barracouta 

 rarely comes far up the Derwent, and frequently a whole season passes in 

 which they never come nearer than Storm Bay. Many years ago, 1 think in 

 1845 or 1846, barracouta came up the Derwent in great numbers, and were 

 caught from the rocks in Sandy Bay ; but even then they remained a very 

 short time in the river. The visits of the king fish to the Derwent are more 

 frequent than those of the barracouta. In the early part of 1854 king fish were 

 caught in immense numbers, on both banks of the river, almost up to Bridge- 

 water. On several occasions in different years they have been found left by 

 the receding tide on the mud-flats at the mouth of the Jordan, 10 miles above 

 Hobart Town, I believe they enter the creeks and rivers to deposit their 

 spawn, as I have often come upon large shoals of young King fish in the 

 nearly fresh water of creeks running into the Derwent near Bridgewater. On 

 one occasion I caught a number of the fry, each about 8 inches long with 

 spinning tackle baited with a small glittering fish. When the whole shoal 

 darted in pursuit, I had a good opportunity of judging of their speed which, 

 for short distances at all events, seems to be greater than that of salmon of 

 the same size. 



Is it not likely that the periodical visits of both Barracouta and King fish 

 are regulated simply by the abundance or scarcity of their prey, always most 

 numerous in our rivers after a long drought which causes the water to be 

 salt farther from the sea than usual ? I well remember that at the time 

 the barracouta were caught in Sandy Bay, as I have mentioned, the whole 

 river was alive with vast shoals of small fish such as I have never seen since 

 — and at times of such abundance the sabnon would probably be but little 

 molested, 



A gentleman asked me a few days ago, "How about your Conger eels?'* 

 My answer was," depend upon it so long as a Conger eel can get a good fat 

 rock-cod close to his own door, he will never waste half his valuable night in 

 chasing a fish which he can never hope to catch !" And the same remark 

 will apply to all our sharks and dog-fish, which are no more numerous here, 

 than on the British coasts, where they are not looked upon as at all injurious 

 to the salmon. 



Having now completed the list of our marine foes we may fairly conclude 

 that a large per-centage of salmon will escape to return to our fresh waters, 

 as, with the single exception of the porpoise, all the creatures mentioned pay 

 us only temporary visits, often at long intervals, and even when such visits 

 do occur, the instinct of thb salmon will probably induce a large proportion of 

 them to keep out of harm's way. 



