PKICES OF PKO VISIONS. 323 



I was dining, not many days subsequent to my arrival, at 

 the table of a hospitable medico, and one not more dis- 

 tinguished for his wit and conviviality than for his surgical 

 skill, and partaking of some excellent roast teal and black 

 wild-duck, when the doctor happened to mention that, in con- 

 sequence of the rains, wild- fowl were cheap and plentiful, not 

 being more than ten shillings a couple ! This appeared very 

 extraordinary to me, as I had observed large flights passing 

 over the town and adjoining country every evening, and had 

 no doubt that they must have been abundant and easy of 

 access in some of the swamps and morasses in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Yarra-Yarra river, which was indeed the case; 

 but nobody took the trouble to go after them. An old 

 broken-down sportsman, upwards of sixty-five years of age, 

 and who had been a game-preserver in England, too old and 

 feeble for the gold-fields, was making at the rate of a thousand 

 pounds per annum by his gun, and it was from him my friend 

 always purchased his game at the low figure of ten shillings 

 for a couple of teal ! It is true that at the same period they 

 woiild have brought twelve shillings in the market, where 

 ordinary fowls were selling for twenty-four shillings a couple, 

 and geese and turkeys at about two pounds each. 



The same paradoxical state of things existed with regard 

 to the supply of fish. Here was a bay (Port Philip) abso- 

 lutely swarming with every variety of the finny tribe, which, 

 in their aboriginal simplicity, only asked to be seduced by a 

 temptation, however simple, but nobody to respond to the 

 invitation, or at least in anything like proportion to the 

 'demand ; and the consequence was, that the most common 

 descriptions, such as bream and flat-heads, were sold for most 

 exorbitant prices. A species of white mullet, which attains 

 a large size, and is christened salmon, but a most unworthy 

 representative of its European relation, was retailed at twice 

 the price of the finest Severn, and the delicate little guard- 



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