FISH AND FISHERIES. 57 
In 1875 the writer went out with fishermen into D’Entrecasteaux’s 
Channel in a small whaleboat with a fish-well in the centre. In the 
middle of the channel a fine shoal of barracouta was met. They 
‘seemed to be following a mass of fish spawn or young fry, of which we 
found quantities in their stomachs. We caught in a few hours as much 
as the boat would hold, probably some seventy or eighty fish from 3 to 4 
feet long. Our mode of procedure was this :—Each had a small stout 
stick about 5 or 6 feet long and an inch thick ; to this was fastened a 
yard of log-line and at the end a square piece of cedar an inch thick 
and two or three long. The hook was fastened firmly on this so as 
to leave the barb projecting. A little piece of green hide was on the 
hook. All that we had to do was to splash and beat the water with the 
stick, pulling the line backwards and forwards, and after two or three. 
turns if the movement was brisk and the splash considerable it was 
seized by a fish. The exertion of pulling it out of the water was great, 
as none weighed less than 6 ibs. and they were oftener 10 bs. in weight. 
They had to be lifted clean up into the air and swung into the boat. 
We were always going fast through the water, and it may be supposed 
that the movement and the splash made a good imitation of the efforts 
of smaller fish when trying to escape from the remorseless Thyrsites 
atun. One can scarcely imagine more interesting sport or harder work 
than a day’s fishing in this style for barracouta. 
DIV. XIII.—COTTO-SCOMBRIFORM ACANTHOP- 
TERYGIANS. 
Fam. CARANGIDA, 
The first family in this division which need occupy our attention is 
the Carangide or Horse Mackerels, which are carnivorous fishes of 
tropical and temperate seas. ; 
Body more or less compressed, oblong, or elevated, covered with small 
scales or naked, eye lateral. Teeth, none or conical. Spinous dorsal 
less developed than the soft or anal, either continuous with or separated 
from the soft portion or rudimentary ; ventrals thoracic or rudimentary 
or absent. No prominent papille near the vent. Gill opening wide. 
Ten abdominal and fourteen caudal vertebre. Fishes of tropical and 
temperate seas. 
Many of the fishes of this large family are in appearance and habit very 
like the more typical of the Scombride. There are very many species in Aus- 
tralian waters, their numbers increasing rapidly towards the warmer seas of the 
north. Those best known to the fishermen of Port Jackson are—the “* yellow- 
tail” (Trachurus declivis), the ‘‘ white trevally” (Caranz gvorgianus), the ‘‘ king- 
fish” (Seriola lalandii), the ‘‘Samson-fish” (Seriola hippos), and ‘‘the tailor” 
(Lemnodon saltator). The first of these, the ‘‘ yellow-tail,” is almost if not quite 
identical with the ‘‘horse mackerel” of Europe (Trachurus trachurus). In the 
young state itis abundant at all times in Port Jackson, and is in great demand for 
bait. The adult fish is seldom seen in the harbour, but is said to pass along the 
coast in large shoals at or about midsummer. It is most probable that this fish 
spawns in the inlets and harbours of the coast, from the fact that the young fish 
of 5 to 6 inches in length are always to be found in such localities. The very 
young fry have a most extraordinary and ingenious way of providing for their 
safety and nutrition at the same time; they take up their quarters inside the 
umbrella of the large medusw, where they are safe from their enemies, and are, 
without any exertion on their part, supplied with the minute organisms which 
constitute their food by the constant current kept up by the action of the curtain- 
looking cilia of the animal. 
H 
