To One Of Them, Not Bigger
Than A Tomtit, We Have Given The Name Of Coach-Whip, From Its Note
Exactly Resembling The Smack Of A Whip.
The country, I am of opinion,
would abound with birds did not the natives, by perpetually setting fire
to the grass and bushes, destroy the greater part of the nests; a cause
which also contributes to render small quadrupeds scarce.
They are besides
ravenously fond of eggs and eat them wherever they find them. They call
the roe of a fish and a bird's egg by one name.
So much has been said of the abundance in which fish are found in the harbours
of New South Wales that it looks like detraction to oppose a contradiction.
Some share of knowledge may, however, be supposed to belong to experience.
Many a night have I toiled (in the times of distress) on the public service,
from four o'clock in the afternoon until eight o'clock next morning,
hauling the seine in every part of the harbour of Port Jackson: and after
a circuit of many miles and between twenty and thirty hauls, seldom more
than a hundred pounds of fish were taken. However, it sometimes happens
that a glut enters the harbour, and for a few days they sufficiently abound.
But the universal voice of all professed fishermen is that they never fished
in a country where success was so precarious and uncertain.
I shall not pretend to enumerate the variety of fish which are found.
They are seen from a whale to a gudgeon.
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