134 NEW SOUTH WALES 
unfortunately a very broken and shallow one, and is rarely available even 
for open boats ; still, during the prevalence of westerly winds fisher- 
men’s boats do occasionally manage to navigate it. 
A few miles to the northward of Ma4nmura commences the still larger 
expanse of waters known as Lake Macquarie. This lake is nearly 20 
miles in length, by an average of about 3 miles in width, but its contour 
is so broken by deeply indented bays and recesses as to give a perimeter 
of about 300 miles. Unlike Tuggerah, Lake Macquarie possesses a very 
tolerable entrance, available for craft drawing up to 6 feet of water, and 
when the works now in progress in the river channel and at the entrance 
are completed Lake Macquarie will probably be navigable for vessels of 
10 feet draught. Theaverage depth of Lake Macquarie is about the 
same as that of Tuggerah. These lakes ‘are the great nurseries of almost 
all our winter supplies of net and line fish. Here unquestionably the 
sea mullet, bream, tarwhine, whiting, flathead, tailor, and garfish find 
their most congenial spawning-grounds, and here also are their natural 
sanctuaries from sharks and other predaceous fishes which devour them 
in the offing. Here also, it is believed, is the chief spawning-ground of 
the schnapper, which afterwards haunts the numerous reefs, bumboras, 
and rocky patches which lie between Broken Bay and Newcastle. The 
supplies of fish from the Tuggerah Lakes have during the past few years 
been despatched to the metropolis by a small freight steamer, which goes 
to Bungaree or Bungaree’s Norah (the Norah Head of the charts), a 
long low point which forms the northern extremity of Tuggerah Bight. 
Tnside the reef and the low-water ledge of rocks, which form a kind of 
breakwater, is a tolerable anchorage for small craft and boats, and a not 
very good landing, whence, however, are shipped many fine freights of 
the best fish which come to our market. From Terrigal to Bird Island 
the offing and inshore grounds still abound in all the best kinds of line 
fish. It is almost impossible to find a square furlong untenanted 
by the schnapper or other equally good fish. The fish are, how- 
ever, at times in the habit of shifting their quarters from one 
ground to another in the neighbourhood. These grounds are 
mostly fished by schnapper men, who camp at Terrigal or Norah, 
and chiefly in the cool months of the year, the distance from 
market (over 30 miles) proving a formidable obstacle to even the most 
hardy and enterprising fishermen during the prevalence of strong 
southerly or north-easterly winds. With proper freight steamers of 
course this obstacle will speedily disappear, and we shall then get fresh 
schnappers and black rock cod (which are here caught of great size and 
excellence) from the Tuggerah and Norah bumboras and the Bird Island 
grounds, with as much regularity, but in far greater quantities, than we 
are now able to furnish ourselves with from Long Reef or Coogee. At 
present we are informed that there are no Chinamen on the Tuggerah 
Lakes, and only a few at Lake Macquarie. This is undoubtedly not a 
subject for regret, although during last winter their places have been 
filled by men whose engines of destruction were far more formidable 
than the Chinese. We have been told of fixed nets being used in Tug- 
gerah Lake enclosing an area of more than half a square mile of water, 
having meshes so small that nothing could escape. This wholesale pro- 
cess—rather facetiously known as “ mortgaging”—was supplemented by 
an auxiliary proceeding (presumably of foreclosure”). Inside the huge 
