specimens of the third dart in--slenderly-bodied, handsome
fish about a foot long. They are one of the few varieties of mullet
which will take a hook, and rare sport they give, as the moment they
feel the line they leap to and fro on the surface, in a series of jumps
and somersaults, and very often succeed in escaping, as their jaws are
very soft and thin.

By the time it is slack water there is a depth of six feet covering the
sandy bottom of the lagoon, the rush and bubble under the tree-bole has
ceased, and every stone, weed, and shell is revealed. Now is the time to
look on the deep-water side of the causeway for the big black bream.

There they are--thirty, fifty--perhaps a hundred of them, swimming
gently to and fro outside the entrance, longing, yet afraid to enter. As
you stand up, and your shadow falls upon their line of vision, they
"go about" and turn head on to watch, sometimes remaining in the same
position, with gently moving fins and tails, for five minutes; sometimes
sinking down to the blue depths beyond, their outlines looming grey and
indistinct as they descend, to reappear again in a few minutes, almost
on the surface, waiting for the dead mullet or gar-fish which you may
perhaps throw to them.

The old ex-Tasmanian convict who was employed to attend to the boat
in which we boys went across to Sydney three days a week, weather
permitting, to attend school, had told us that we "couldn't hook e'er a
one o' thim black bream; the divils is that cunning, masters, that you
can't do it. So don't thry it. 'Tis on'y a-waistin' time."

But we knew better; we were born in the colony--in a seaport town on
the northern coast--and the aborigines of the Hastings River tribe had
taught us many valuable secrets, one of which was how to catch black
bream in the broad light of day as the tide flowed over a long stretch
of sand, bare at low water, at the mouth of a certain "blind" creek a
few miles above the noisy, surf-swept bar. But here, in Mosman's
Bay, in Sydney, we had not the cunningly devised gear of our black
friends--the principal article of which was the large uni-valve
_aliotis_ shell--to help us, so we set to work and devised a plan of our
own, which answered splendidly, and gave us glorious sport.

When the tide was out and the sands were dry, carrying a basket
containing half a dozen strong lines with short-shanked, thick hooks,
and two or three dozen young gar-fish, mullet, or tentacles of the
octop