AUSTRALIAN FISHES 129 



fish common to Tasmania and the Island Continent 

 besides : the famous trumpeter, the bastard (a 

 kind of bass), and the real thing, which is the 

 finest fish in Australasia, varying in weight from 

 one to forty pounds. 1 



This is how I went out to catch the last-named. 

 Starting at midnight, the moon and stars making 

 it light as day, a slight breeze setting in from the 

 west, the fishing-cutter slipped from the wharf and 

 made way down the harbour. The Anne Eliza 

 looked anything but a mere fishing-smack, her 

 lines being fine as a yacht's, and, as a matter of 

 fact, she had been built for one ; but her owner 

 had tired of the sport and had sold her a bargain 

 to the skipper, who used her for trumpeter- 

 catching. 



A run of twelve miles took us to the harbour 

 mouth, where a lonely beacon warned mariners of 

 the existence in mid-channel of a rock, euphoni- 

 ously dubbed " The Iron Pot." On thewaydown, 

 not very far from Hobart, I noticed on the cliffs a 

 shot-tower, reminding me of those to be seen 

 from the Victoria Embankment of the Thames. 

 "That," said the skipper, "is the first of the kind 



ever built in Australia. It belongs to Mr. - , 



whose father left it to him on the singular condi- 



1 Tasmania. 



9 



