Ill Fishing in the Southern Seas 5 7 



strain ! Splash ! A great white face, with hideous, 

 snapping jaws, trying in vain to turn on you. In 

 with him ! Over the side ! Jump on the thwarts ! 

 All handy, as he plunges and lashes and twists and 

 writhes ! A strong knife, and strong wrist, deter- 

 mined to do it — and six or seven feet of savagery is 

 as calm as a sucking dove.-' 



' I confess that I love " stingareeing " for its own 

 sake, as a sport which requires a certain amount of 

 skill ; but it has its drawbacks, — among others, the 

 uselessness, except for bait, of your quarry, — and 

 though you may prize the stings as relics, you soon get 

 tired of collecting them, and so fastidious as to be very 

 hard to please. After all, what is the biggest sting- 

 ray that you ever killed compared to that monster 

 in Sydney Museum, which is, I believe, unique, and 

 measures (shall we say, modestly ?) ten feet across 

 the wings ? It is wrong to get out of temper with 

 a mere fish who cannot even boast of a real bone in 

 his body ; but I fully believe that what makes one 

 so keen after the black trygon is that fierce, brutal 

 soul of his, which hardly has its equal even among 

 our own kindred.' 



^ (1870. March <jtk. — Sharking and snappering. Sport brought 

 to an abrupt termination by the advent of so spirited a shark as to 

 cause one of the party to leap overboard, the utter prostration of 

 another, and the dire consternation of all. Got the better of him, and 

 came home.) 



