FISHES PHENOMENAL AND ECONOMICAL. 175 



waters of species regarded as identical with the English Sprat, Clupea sprattus, and 

 others, such as C. sagax, very closely resembling the English Pilchard, has been 

 recorded in a previous page. The comparisons then under discussion did not, how- 

 ever, permit of a reference to certain members of the same family which are essentially 

 Australian or Indo-Pacific in their distribution and veritable giants of their tribe. 

 These giant herrings, represented more especially by the two specific types Chanos 

 salmoneus and Megalops cyprinoides, are restricted in their distribution to tropical and 

 sub-tropical waters, and within these limits have been met with by the writer at the 

 greater portion of the coastal and estuarine districts visited, from Moreton Bay on the 

 east coast to the Gascoigne River in Western Australia. Both of these two species 

 are most excellent eating. They ascend the rivers into fresh water in the young 

 condition, and grow to lengths of four and five feet. In India and the Malay 

 Peninsula, where both species are also found and much esteemed, they are made 

 the subjects of cultivation in suitable tanks. 



While of these two last-named giant members of the Herring family, Chanos 

 salmoneus is the more prized for the table, the second form, Megalops cyprinoides, 

 would appear to possess the most conspicuous potentialities for sport. This species 

 is, in point of fact, very closely allied to the North American Tarpon, a species 

 which, while long known to ichthyologists, has quite recently sprung into notoriety 

 with regard to the magnificent sport it has been found capable of affording. The 

 American Tarpon, Megalops thryssoides, attains to no less a length than six feet, 

 with an accompanying weight of over 200 Ibs., and is now systematically fished for, 

 with a salmon rod and a live fish bait, in the tropical estuaries of Florida. The fish, 

 when hooked, is a most game one, surpassing the salmon in the vigour of its leaps 

 and in its rushes to every point of the compass to free itself from the restrain- 

 ing hook, and will frequently show fight for the space of several hours before 

 yielding itself to the hands of its captor. A most fascinating account of Tarpon 

 fishing, with illustrations and technical instructions as to the modus operandi, were 

 published in the August and October (1895) numbers of the "Badminton Magazine." 

 Enthusiastic anglers disposed to initiate similar exciting sport in Australian waters 

 may be profitably referred to those pages. There can be no doubt, in the writer's 

 opinion, that in addition to the Ox-eye Herring, Megalops cyprinoides, there are half- 

 a-dozen other tropical estuarine-frequenting Australian fish that would yield equally 

 exciting sport on the same lines. Included in such list would be the Giant Perch, 

 Lates calcarifer ; at least two of the Tassel fishes, genus Polynemus ; the Gropers, 



