96 ABORIGINAL FISHERIES, BREWARRINA. 



get beyond the influence of the noxious drug. Of course the 

 destruction of small fry was very great where this plan was 

 adopted. Traps of various kinds were fabricated by some 

 tribes. Some of these are of basket-work and resemble eel 

 traps; others were more complicated and were placed in 

 running streams. In tidal waters enclosures were made 

 with stakes and interwoven sticks and brushwood having 

 openings which were closed at high water, and similar con- 

 trivances were often to be seen at the embouchures of small 

 creeks and back waters in which, at times, considerable 

 quantities of shoal fish were taken. Almost everything " was 

 fish that came to their nets," but I am not aware whether, 

 like the Chinese, they considered stingrays' flappers and 

 dried sharks' fins a special delicacy. The liver of the large 

 porcupine fish certainly was deemed a tit bit. I believe it is 

 generally considered to be a poisonous fish as it belongs to a 

 genera that contains many dangerous species. 



A gentleman resident on the Murrumbidgee described in 

 graphic terms an afternoon spent with several blacks on a 

 fishing excursion when a large take of Murray cod was 

 obtained by the men diving into deep water and spearing the 

 cod with short spears while below the surface. The cod 

 were apparently very numerous and of great size and were 

 probably in a more quiescent state than usual. He stated 

 that it was by no means an uncommon mode of obtaining 

 fish by the Waradgerie blacks. 



The most remarkable method of catching river-fish is that 

 adopted by the tribes on the Barwon or Darling Eiver, at 

 Brewarrina, and it is probably unique so far as the Australian 

 Aborigines are concerned. 



At Brewarrina, which is a small township about 70 miles 

 above Bourke on the Darling River, and some 530 miles from 

 Sydney, there is a structure of Aboriginal workmanship of 

 undated antiquity, and possibly the only work of a permanent 

 character known to have had its origin among this race. At this 

 part of the river its course is obstructed by a granitic dyke 

 which forms a natural dam when the waters of the river fall 

 below a certain level. Above this dyke the depth of water is 

 considerable for a long stretch of the river, and the upper 

 waters and branches of the river are well stocked with cod, 

 perch, and other fish. Por some distance down the river its 

 bed is strewn with great boulders, and the stream restrained 

 by the dyke is under ordinary circumstances a shallow rapid, 



