134 NEW SOUTH WALES 



unfortunately a very broken and shallow one, and is rarely available even 

 for open boats ; still, during the prevalence of westerly winds fisher- 

 men's boats do occasionally manage to navigate it. 



A few miles to the northward of Manmura commences the still larger 

 expanse of waters known as Lake Macquarie. This lake is nearly 20 

 miles in length, by an average of about 3 miles in width, but its contour 

 is so broken by deeply indented bays and recesses as to give a perimeter 

 of about 300 miles. Unlike Tviggerah, Lake Macquarie possesses a vexy 

 tolerable entrance, available for craft drawing up to 6 feet of water, and 

 when the works now in progress in the river channel and at the entrance 

 are completed Lake Macquarie will probably be navigable for vessels of 

 1 feet draught. The average depth of Lake Macquarie is about the 

 same as that of Tuggerah. These lakes are the great nurseries of almost 

 all our winter supplies of net and line fish. Here unquestionably the 

 sea mullet, bream, tarwhine, whiting, flathead, tailor, and garfish find 

 their most congenial spawning-grounds, and here also are their natural 

 sanctuaries from sharks and other predaceous fishes which devour them 

 in the ofiing. Here also, it is believed, is the chief spawning-ground of 

 the schnapper, which afterwards haunts the numerous reefs, bumboras, 

 and rocky patches which lie between Broken Bay and Newcastle. The 

 supplies of fish from the Tuggerah Lakes have during the past few years 

 been despatched to the metropolis by a small freight steamer, which goes 

 to Bungaree or Bungaree's Norah (the Norah Head of the charts), a 

 long low point which forms the northern extremity of Tuggerah Bight. 

 Inside the reef and the low-water ledge of rocks, which form a kind of 

 breakwater, is a tolerable anchorage for small craft and boats, and a not 

 very good landing, whence, however, are shipped many fine freights of 

 the best fish which come to our market. From Terrigal to Bird Island 

 the ofiing and inshore grounds still abound in all the best kinds of line 

 fish. It is almost imjDossible to find a square furlong untenanted 

 by the schnapper or other equally good fish. The fish are, how- 

 ever, at times in tlie habit of shifting their quarters from one 

 ground to another in the neighbourhood. These grounds are 

 mostly fished by schnapper men, who camp at Terrigal or Norah, 

 and chiefly in the cool months of the year, the distance from 

 market (over 30 miles) proving a formidable obstacle to even the most 

 hardy and enterprising fishermen during the prevalence of strong 

 southerly or north-easterly winds. With proper freight steamers of 

 course this obstacle will speedily disappear, and we shall then get fresh 

 schnappers and black rock cod (which are here caught of great size and 

 excellence) from the Tuggerah and Norah bumboras and the BLrd Island 

 grounds, with as much regularity, but in far greater quantities, than we 

 are now able to furnish ourselves with from Long Reef or Coogee. At 

 present we are informed that there are no Chinamen on the Tuggerah 

 Lakes, and only a few at Lake Macquarie. This is undoubtedly not a 

 subject for regret, although during last winter their places have been 

 filled by men whose engines of destruction were far more formidable 

 than the Chinese. We have been told of fixed nets being used in Tug- 

 gerah Lake enclosing an area of more than half a square mile of water, 

 having meshes so small that nothing could escape. This wholesale pro- 

 cess — rather facetiously known as " mortgaging" — was supplemented by 

 an auxiliary proceeding (presumably of " foreclosure"). Inside the huge 



