riSH AND FISHERIES. 45 



snoozed with gut, is concealed and carefully lowered down into the 

 water. The bait, like a plump oyster, rarely fails to attract ; but very 

 often the darkie (as the bream is familarly called) seizes the bait and 

 comes off best. Dark nights and flood tide afford the best time for 

 black bream fishing. At such times it is usual to have a lamp in the 

 bottom of the boat to enable you to disentangle your line or examine 

 your bait, &c. This, however, is not indispensable ; but in its absence 

 it certainly is advisable to have a set of lines ready for use, so that when 

 one is disabled it may be bunched up and another used. Black bream 

 fishing, when they bite freely, is first-rate sj)ort, and which is much 

 enhanced by having one party in the boat for the express piirpose of 

 making ready your bait and attending to the lines. Notwithstanding 

 the cunning and shyness of these fish during the day, they are readily 

 caught at night by baited baskets or traps lowered to the bottom. 

 A junk of beef boiled almost to tatters is secured inside to the bottom 

 of the ti'ap. The small fishes are first attracted. They enter and tug 

 away at the bait, which is easily shredded. The bream soon follow and 

 are captured. Meshing nets, placed along the rocks, also secure many 

 at night, but the ordinary hauling net or seine very frequently secures 

 great numbers. 



The Bream is found in the Hunter River even where the water is 

 nearly fresh but most abundantly where it is brackish. The anglers 

 in that locality find that the best bait is a prawn [Penceus), but it must 

 be boiled or the fish will not touch it. 



V.-Fam. HOPLOGNATHID^. 



Only one species in Australia, of no economical importance. 



VI.-Fam. CIRRHITID^. 



Body oblong, compressed, with cycloid scales, lateral line continuous. 

 Mouth and eyes as the last families. No bony stay for the pre-oper- 

 culum. Six (generally), five, or three branchiostegals. Dentition more 

 or less complete, composed of small pointed teeth, sometimes with the 

 addition of canines. Dorsal fin single, of equal spinous and soft por- 

 tions. Anal, with three S];)ines, generally less developed than the soft 

 dorsal. The lower rays of the pectoral fins simple, and generally 

 enlarged ; ventrals thoracic, but remote from the rest of the pectorals, 

 with one spine and five rays. 



The fishes of this family may be readily recognized (says Giinther) 

 by their thickened undivided pectoral rays, which in some are evidently 

 auxiliary organs of locomotion, in others probably organs of touch. 

 They differ from the following family, the Scorpcenidce, by the absence 

 of a bony connection between the infraorbital ring andthe pre-operculum. 



This is a small but natural family, and is well represented in Australian waters 

 in the genera Latris and ChUodactylus. The first of these is the genus of the well- 

 known "HobartTown Trumpeter," a fish deservedly of high reputation, and of 

 three other species added by Count Castelnau to the Victorian fauna. The other 

 genus (ChUodactylus) is also largely represented in Tasmania and Victoria, one 

 species being commonly imported from Hobart Town in a smoked and dried state 

 under the name of "perch." The species foxxnd in New South Wales are, two 

 fishes called by the fishermen " morwong," both of the genus ChUodactylus. They 



