Early In The Morning, Late In The Evening, And Occasionally In The Night, This Work Is Conducted, With The Greatest Success, Though Many Are Caught Sometimes In The Day.

As many as fifty birds are taken in a single haul.

I have myself, with the aid of a native, caught thirty-three, and many more would have been got, but that the net was old, and the birds broke through it before they could be all killed. On other occasions, I have been out with the natives, where a party of five or six have procured from twenty to thirty ducks, on an average, daily, for many days successively. In these occupations the natives make use of a peculiar shrill whistle to frighten down the birds; it is produced by pulling out the under lip with the fore-finger and thumb, and pressing it together, whilst the tongue is placed against the groove, or hollow thus formed, and the breath strongly forced through. Whistling is also practised in a variety of other ways, and has peculiar sounds well known to the natives, which indicate the object of the call. It is used to call attention, to point out that game is near, to make each other aware of their respective positions in a wooded country, or to put another on his guard that an enemy is near, etc., etc.

Such is an outline of some of the kinds of food used by the natives, and the modes of procuring it as practised in various parts of Australia where I have been.

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