KEW SOUTH WALES, 357 



some kind of defence for the more vital parts. 

 They were provided with nets for catching very 

 large fish, or animals, as the fragments of a rot- 

 ten one lying on the shore were picked up, the 

 meshes of which were wide enough to admit the 

 escape of a moderate sized porpoise; and the line 

 of which it was made was from three quarters to 

 an inch in .circumference. 



Lieut. Flinders thought this mode of procur- 

 ing their food would cause a characteristic dif- 

 ference between the manners and dispositions 

 of these people, and of those who mostly depend 

 upon the spear or fiz-gig for a supply. In the 

 one case, there must necessarily be a mutual 

 operation of two or more, who would from neces- 

 sity associate together. Those which had been 

 met with in Shoal Bay and Glass- House Bay- 

 were far superior to any that had been seen 

 in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson ; this 

 superiority Lieut. Flinders attributed to the dif- 

 ferent mode of procuring fish which had been 

 adopted by the inhabitants. He likewise sup- 

 posed that the use of nets, and consequently 

 whatever resulted from such use, arose from the 

 form of the bay, which being shoal for a consi- 

 derable distance from the shores, gave the great- 

 est advantage to nets, over every other method, 

 more especially the setting and scoop nets. 

 Pumice-Stone river being full of shoals, required 

 the same manner of fishing; and it was observ- 

 ed that most if not all the islands in the bay 

 were surrounded by cntensive shoals, which, by 



