FISH AND FISHERIES. 135 



ring made by a mile or so of net, a boat from time to time throws off a 

 small seine, which is "bull-ringed," or drawn to the shore where prac- 

 ticable round as many fish as are required for the next trip of the 

 steamer. We have been told on good authority that the proceeds of sale 

 averaged for a long time about £100 per month to one fisherman ; very 

 handsome results, considering the outrageous violation of the law by which 

 they were procured. 



Crayfish are known to abound off some of the headlands in this neigh- 

 bourhood, but at present no supplies seem to come from these waters to 

 Sydney. From "Bird Island to Nobby 's (Newcastle) schnapper grounds 

 are numerous, but not so abundant, or, it may be, not so well known as 

 those about Tuggerah Bight and Bird Island. Off Wabung and Spoon 

 Island reefs the inshore grounds are well fui-nished ; and again, those 

 lying off the entrance to Lake Macquarie ("Reid's Mistake" of the charts). 



In the bight between the small island so known (it is called " Creen" 

 Island by the aborigines and " Green" Island by the coasters and fisher- 

 men) and Red Head, there are several " bumboras" and rocky patches 

 where schnappers can be taken in almost any quantities, but the sharks 

 are usually very plentiful also in these localities. 



Fresh fish are not often taken to Sydney from Lake Macquarie, the 

 few fishermen stationed there preferring to fish for the Chinese curers 

 rather than to take the chance of catching a Newcastle steamer four or 

 five miles in the offing. Large quantities of mullet were at one time 

 cured here for the Newcastle market, and it is said that a considerable 

 quantity of fresh fish finds its way to the Wallsend mining population at 

 the north end of the lake. We cannot leave this " Lake" section of our 

 northern fishing-grounds, as it might very aptly be termed, without ex- 

 pressing an emphatic opinion as to the urgent necessity of protecting 

 by some effective legislation these magnificent " nurseries" from any 

 further destruction by nets of unlimited length and diminutive mesh, 

 such as an eye-witness has told us have at one haul frequently brought 

 to shore a ton or more of small fish, for no better purpose than to be left 

 to rot there. In the economy of our Fisheries these warm and sheltered 

 waters, abounding as they do in minute Crustacea and other food, play a 

 most impoi'tant part ; and if those in the neighbourhood of our large 

 centres of population be not soon relieved from the wantonly destructive 

 agencies which are now ruining the young fry, of which these lakes are 

 the natural homes, it will be futile to expect any considerable results 

 from the protection, at spawning-time, of adult fish — at all events within 

 the range of waters for which these inlets are the appointed nurseries. 



Newcastle and the lower reaches of the river Hunter are at present 

 of far more importance to Sydney as the chief station of the prawn 

 fishery, and for their natural and other oysters beds, than for the supply 

 of line or net fish which they afford. It is even said that the population 

 of Newcastle is not adequately supplied by the Hunter ; and the great 

 and constant destruction of small fish by prawn nets is stated to be the 

 not improbable reason. Port Stephens, about 24 miles to the north- 

 ward of Newcastle, with its innumerable outer grounds, including the 

 Broughton Islands, and extending as far as the Seal Rocks, is probably 

 the grandest fishing station on the entire seaboard of this Colony. Con^ 

 nected with the vast series of lakes (the Myall Lakes) on the north, and 



