AUSTRALIAN FISHES 127 



1868, tasted like sturgeon and salmon combined. 

 But the jexv-fish's flesh certainly does not, the 

 flesh resembling hake, and the blue groper makes 

 but indifferent food. 



Silver mullets, differing but little from the 

 British, are very abundant in Australia. At 

 certain seasons they swarm in myriads, and form 

 an important article of diet, while in Sydney they 

 are so cheap that they are used for bait. To the 

 palate they are richer than the English mullet, and 

 this to some people is a defect. 



In Melbourne, for the benefit of an Angling 

 Association, whose members fish for them with 

 rod, line, and small red worm or morsels of boiled 

 mussel, mullet are not allowed to be netted at the 

 mouth of the River Yarra. These fishermen 

 procure from a boiling-down establishment, where 

 diseased sheep, oxen, and horses are reduced to 

 glue and other useful articles, the residuum, an 

 awfully stinking substance called Hashmagandy, 

 compared to which burley is a delicious perfume. 

 It is sold to them for the nominal sum of two- 

 pence a sackful. Artfully placed in weighted 

 bag-nets, and let down into the water where 

 mullet assemble, they are so attracted by it that 

 they often get entangled in the meshes. The 

 mullet-catchers moor their boats almost side by 

 side, and the fun begins. 



