into these frames twigs were inserted, at regular intervals, so as to form, by crossing each other, a strong and efficient kind of net or snare. Where these were erected, a small opening was left towards the middle of the current, in order, probably, that some sort of bag or netting might be applied there to receive the fish, while the native in the river above should drive them to this netting.[1]
In Western Australia fish are nearly always taken in weirs, made of brushwood and poles, from three to six feet in depth.
Mr. Gideon S. Lang gives a description of a singular work of art constructed by the Aborigines. He says:—"The great weir for catching fish, on the Upper Darling, called Breewarner, is, both for conception and execution, one of the most extraordinary works recorded of any savage tribe, and, independent of another described by Murrell, the shipwrecked mariner, who passed seventeen years among them, is quite sufficient to prove their capacity to construct works on a large scale, and requiring combined action. This weir (Breewarner) is about sixty-five miles above the township of Bourke. It is built at a rocky part of the river, from eighty to one hundred yards in width, and extends about one hundred yards of the river course. It forms one immense labyrinth of stone walls about three or four feet high, forming circles from two to four feet in diameter, some opening into each other, forming very crooked but continuous passages, others having one entrance only. In floods, as much as twenty feet of water sweeps over them, and carries away the tops of the walls; the lower parts of the walls, however, are so solidly and skilfully built with large, heavy stones, which must have been brought from a considerable distance, and with great combined labor, that they have stood every flood from time immemorial. Every summer this labyrinth is repaired, and the fish, in going up or down the river, enter it, get confused in its mazes, and are caught by the blacks by hand in immense quantities."[2]
5. By hooks.—Catching fish by the hook and line was not practised by all the natives of Victoria. In Gippsland, however, they used hooks made of bone; and an ancient fish-hook of bone, obtained from Gippsland, is figured in this work. Mr. Green says that the natives of the Yarra were unacquainted with the hook. Meyer and Taplin and Wilhelmi state that it was not used in South Australia until after the arrival of the Europeans; nor is it known ou the Paroo.[3] But the natives of Victoria, in some parts certainly—if not in the Western district, most assuredly on the eastern seaboard—were accustomed to make fishing hooks and lines. The Western Port blacks name the fish-hook Ling'an-ling'an—but perhaps they derived the invention and were taught its uses by the Gippsland natives. In the north-eastern and northern parts of Australia the blacks make excellent fish-hooks and good lines.
The hooks were not in all parts of the same shape as those that somewhat resemble European hooks. They appear to have sharpened pieces of wood in such a manner as when hitched to twine and baited would secure the larger kinds of fish.
