APPENDIX. 245 
on the sand, lines are hauled aboard, the tug steams 
back to the other end of the reef and fishing is resumed. 
It would be useless for any one visiting the colonies to 
attempt to take his tackle with him, as there are several 
tackle shops in all the capitals where everything 
necessary, including special heavy leads and_ strong 
hooks with a peculiar twist mounted on very stout 
snooding, are supplied at low cost. The line—rods 
would, as I have pointed out, be out of the question— 
is a hundred yards in length and is usually wound on a 
cork bung. Two hooks are attached at intervals of a 
foot above the end to which is fastened the lead. The 
bait consists of squid and various small fish known as 
yellowtails, trevally, old wives, etc., and each fisherman 
of the party is allotted a small heap of assorted baits 
which one of the crew cuts up and places on the deck 
opposite the member’s number (drawn by ticket) chalked 
on the gunwale. Besides the schnapper, which is 
nothing more than a large and powerful red bream, 
caught of a weight of 30 lbs. (but far more com- 
monly of 3 lbs.) other fish of greater interest to the 
visiting naturalist than to the resident fishermen (who 
always curse them as ‘‘ wrong colour”) come to the 
hook, notably, “leather jackets, a grotesque type of 
trigger-fish, traglin, morwongs of considerable size, 
“sergeant bakers,” pig fishes, and groupers, as well as the 
afore-mentioned flatheads, as soon as the baits lie on the 
sand. In addition to all these and more, sharks are 
often a great nuisance, not the small sharks that give 
trouble on the Cornish coast, but monsters of anything 
up to 20 feet in length that think nothing of biting off 
three-quarters of every fish that is being hauled. So 
fiercely do they swarm round one’s boat at times, that 
there is nothing for it but to.steam away to another 
ground. 
For those who canhot stomach the motion of 
the Pacific, which is at all times considerable, often 
next door to distressing, there is the quieter 
pursuit of black bream in the sheltered creeks fecal 
of Middle Harbour and similar still waters ; and 
this ‘black brimming” is without a doubt the highest 
form of sport practised in the colonies, 
