250 NATUEAL HISTOET SKETCHES. 



we used generally to kill our first snipe about the time 

 the first snapper was caught), and are taken up to 

 Christmas. They then leave the ground, travel up the 

 bay by the G-eelong line, and out to sea at the Heads. 

 The snapper is a flat, coarse-looking fish, something 

 similar to a large bream, but with a large prickly dorsal 

 fin like the perch. They are a very gregarious, bold 

 biting fish, have their particular feeding-grounds, and I 

 have known six or eight dozen big snapper taken by one 

 boat's crew in the day. They are worth about 1 to 

 1. 10s. per dozen, are a very good eating fish, and take 

 salt well. The large snapper run from 12 to 20 Ibs., and 

 I have seen them larger. As soon as the big snapper 

 begin to leave, the second-sized ones come on to the 

 feeding-grounds, and last of all, about Christmas, the 

 small ones. 



The flathead is a curious-looking fish, and, like the 

 morepoke among birds, seems all head. They generally 

 run from half a pound up to two pounds, but I have seen 

 them larger. They have a sharp prickle on the edge of 

 each gill cover, the wound of which is dangerous. I have 

 seen some very ugly wounds inflicted both by this and 

 the prickly back fin of the snapper, and it is dangerous 

 work standing in a crowded boat with the big snapper 

 floundering about the bottom, unless a man has on good 

 sea-boots. I suppose it is owing to the quantity of animal 

 food men eat, and to the heat of the blood ; but a small 

 flesh wound, which at home would be treated as nothing, 

 is often out here attended with serious consequences. 



