FISH AND FISHERIES. 45 
snoozed with gut, is concealed and carefully lowered down into the 
water. The bait, like a plump oyster, rarely fails to attract; but very 
often the darkie (as the bream is familarly called) seizes the bait and 
comes off best. Dark nights and flood tide afford the best time for 
black bream fishing. At such times it is usual to have a lamp in the 
bottom of the boat to enable you to disentangle your line or examine 
your bait, &c. This, however, is not indispensable; but in its absence 
it certainly is advisable to have a set of lines ready for use, so that when 
one is disabled it may be bunched up and another used. Black bream 
fishing, when they bite freely, is first-rate sport, and which is much 
enhanced by having one party in the boat for the express purpose of 
making ready your bait and attending to the lines. Notwithstanding 
the cunning and shyness of these fish during the day, they are readily 
caught at night by baited baskets or traps lowered to the bottom. 
A junk of beef boiled almost to tatters is secured inside to the bottom 
of the trap. The small fishes are first attracted. They enter and tug 
away at the bait, which is easily shredded. The bream soon follow and 
are captured. Meshing nets, placed along the rocks, also secure many 
at night, but the ordinary hauling net or seine very frequently secures 
great numbers. 
The Bream is found.in the Hunter River even where the water is 
nearly fresh but most abundantly where it is brackish. The anglers 
in that locality find that the best bait is a prawn (Pencus), but it must 
be boiled or the fish will not touch it. 
V._Fam. HOPLOGNATHID. 
Only one species in Australia, of no economical importance. 
VI._Fam. CIRRHITIDA. 
Body oblong, compressed, with cycloid scales, lateral line continuous. 
Mouth and eyes as the last families. No bony stay for the pre-oper- 
culum. Six (generally), five, or three branchiostegals. Dentition more 
or less complete, composed of small pointed teeth, sometimes with the 
addition of canines. Dorsal fin single, of equal spinous and soft por- 
tions. ‘Anal, with three spines, generally less developed than the soft 
dorsal. The lower rays of the pectoral fins simple, and generally 
enlarged ; ventrals thoracic, but remote from the rest of the pectorals, 
with one spine and five rays. 
The fishes of this family may be readily recognized (says Giinther) 
by their thickened undivided pectoral rays, which in some are evidently 
auxiliary organs of locomotion, in others probably organs of touch. 
They differ from the following family, the Scorpenide, by the absence 
of a bony connection between the infraorbital ring andthe pre-operculum. 
This is a small but natural family, and is well represented in Australian waters 
in the genera Latris and Chilodactylus. The first of these is the genus of the well- 
known “Hobart Town Trumpeter,” a fish deservedly of high reputation, and of 
three other species added by Count Castelnau to the Victorian fauna. The other 
genus (Chilodactylus) is also largely ng eee! in Tasmania and Victoria, one 
species being commonly imported from Hobart Town in a smoked and dried state 
under the name of ‘‘perch.” The species found in New South Wales are, two 
fishes called by the fishermen “‘ morwong,” both of the genus Chilodactylus. They 
