142 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
swish and swirl and bubble, and a compact body 
of keen-eyed “ blue-fish ” or whiting that were 
cruising in water scarce deep enough to swim in, 
fled seaward with lightning-like rapidity. That 
we should see plenty of fish along this beach we 
knew, but we were not prepared for the extra¬ 
ordinary sight that we witnessed a mile or two 
further on ; for here, at the mouths of two 
little creeks which ran down to the sea in 
parallel lines not a hundred yards apart, the 
water was literally teeming with countless thou¬ 
sands of silvery bream, trevally, whiting and 
garfish, and every wave seemed to add to their 
number. Swimming so close to the shore that 
every now and then some hundreds would be 
left stranded on the sand by the backwash, were 
swarms of dark green-backed garfish, about 
fifteen inches long. It did not take us long to 
discover the cause of this gathering of the clans 
—the banks of each rivulet were covered with 
layers and ridges of fine big prawns, and by the 
turmoil at the creeks’ mouths it was evident 
that numbers were being swept down into the 
hungry jaws that awaited them. On the pre¬ 
vious evening, so Sandy told us, there had been 
a violent thunderstorm, the creeks had risen 
