AUSTRALIAN FISHES 129 



fish common to Tasmania and the Island Continent 

 besides : the famous trumpeter, the bastard (a 

 kind of bass), and the real thing, which is the 

 finest fish in Australasia, varying in weight from 

 one to forty pounds. i 



This is how I went out to catch the last-named. 

 Starting at midnight, the moon and stars making 

 it light as day, a slight breeze setting in from the 

 west, the fishing-cutter slipped from the wharf and 

 made way down the harbour. The Anne Eliza 

 looked anything but a mere fishing-smack, her 

 lines being fine as a yacht's, and, as a matter of 

 fact, she had been built for one ; but her owner 

 had tired of the sport and had sold her a bargain 

 to the skipper, who used her for trumpeter- 

 catching. 



A run of twelve miles took us to the harbour 

 mouth, where a lonely beacon warned mariners of 

 the existence in mid-channel of a rock, euphoni- 

 ously dubbed "The Iron Pot." On the way down, 

 not very far from Hobart, I noticed on the cliffs a 

 shot-tower, reminding me of those to be seen 

 from the Victoria Embankment of the Thames. 

 " That," said the skipper, " is the first of the kind 



ever built in Australia. It belongs to Mr. , 



whose father left it to him on the singular condi- 



' Tasmania. 



9 



