FISH AND FISHERIES. 135 
ring made by a mile or so of net, a boat from time to time throws off a 
small seine, which is “bull-ringed,” or drawn to the shore where prac- 
ticable round as many fish as are required for the next trip of the 
steamer. We have been told on good authority that the proceeds of sale 
averaged for a long time about £100 per month to one fisherman ; very 
handsome results, considering the outrageous violation of the law by which 
they were procured. 
Crayfish are known to abound off some of the headlands in this neigh- 
bourhood, but at present no supplies seem to come from these waters to 
Sydney. From Bird Island to Nobby’s (Newcastle). schnapper grounds 
are numerous, but not so abundant, or, it may be, not so well known as 
those about Tuggerah Bight and Bird Island. Off Wabung and Spoon 
Island reefs the inshore grounds are well furnished ; and again, those 
lying off the entrance to Lake Macquarie (“‘Reid’s Mistake” of the charts). 
In the bight between the small island so known (it is called ‘“ Creen” 
Island by the aborigines and “ Green” Island by the coasters and fisher- 
men) and Red Head, there are several “ bumboras” and rocky patches 
where schnappers can be taken in almost any quantities, but the sharks 
are usually very plentiful also in these localities. 
Fresh fish are not often taken to Sydney from Lake Macquarie, the 
few fishermen stationed there preferring to fish for the Chinese curers 
rather than to take the chance of catching a Newcastle steamer four or 
five miles in the offing. Large quantities of muliet were at one time 
cured here for the Newcastle market, and it is said that a considerable 
quantity of fresh fish finds its way to the Wallsend mining population at 
the north end of the lake. We cannot leave this “ Lake” section of our 
northern fishing-grounds, as it might very aptly be termed, without ex- 
pressing an emphatic opinion as to the urgent necessity of protecting 
by some effective legislation these magnificent “nurseries” from any 
further destruction by nets of unlimited length and diminutive mesh, 
such as an eye-witness has told us have at one haul frequently brought 
to shore a fon or more of small fish, for no better purpose than to be left 
to rot there. In the economy of our Fisheries these warm and sheltered 
waters, abounding as they do in minute crustacea and other food, play a 
most important part ; and if those in the neighbourhood of our large 
centres of population be not soon relieved from the wantonly destructive 
agencies which are now ruining the young fry, of which these lakes are 
the natural homes, it will be futile to expect any considerable results 
from the protection, at spawning-time, of adult fish—at all events within 
the range of waters for which these inlets are the appointed nurseries. 
Newcastle and the lower reaches of the river Hunter are at present 
of far more importance to Sydney as the chief station of the prawn 
fishery, and for their natural and other oysters beds, than for the supply 
of line or net fish which they afford. It is even said that the population 
of Newcastle is not adequately supplied by the Hunter; and the great 
and constant destruction of small fish by prawn nets is stated to be the 
not improbable reason. Port Stephens, about 24 miles to the north 
ward of Newcastle, with its innumerable outer grounds, including the 
Broughton Islands, and extending as far as the Seal Rocks, is probably 
the grandest fishing station on the entire seaboard of this Colony. \ Con 
nected with the vast series of lakes (the Myall Lakes) on the north, and 
