in the upper shell, which serves for a
dish. They are generally very fat and delicious, so that the New
Hollanders are extremely fond of them, and the turtle season, being an
important part of the year, is looked forward to with pleasure. The
green turtles, which are a much larger animal, found only by the
sea-side, are taken when crawling on the beach. If they by accident
get upon their backs, they are unable to right themselves, and perish
miserably, so that nothing more is necessary to secure them, than to
place them in that posture, and they may be taken away and devoured
at leisure. Among Wellesley Islands, at the bottom of the Gulph of
Carpentaria, in the north of New Holland, Captain Flinders obtained in
one day, in this manner, no less than forty-six turtles, the least of
them weighing 250lbs, and the average being about 300lbs; besides which,
many that were not wanted, because there was no room to stow them away,
were turned again, and suffered to make their escape.

Opossum hunting offers another means of supplying food to the
Australians, and as these quadrupeds usually dwell in the hollows of
decayed trees, and ascend the trees when they are at all alarmed, the
mode of pursuing them is of a new and different character. The first
thing to be done is to ascertain that the opossum has really concealed
itself somewhere in the tree. To discover this the holes made by the
nails of the animal in the bark as it climbed up, are sufficient; only,
one of these footmarks having a little sand in it is anxiously sought
for, and if this sand sticks together, when the hunter blows gently upon
it, it is a proof, since it is not dry enough yet to blow away, that the
opossum has gone up into the tree that very morning. The dextrous savage
then pulls out his hatchet,[52] a rude _stone hatchet_--unless he has
been fortunate enough to get a better one from some European, and cuts a
notch in the bark of the tree sufficiently large and deep to receive the
ball of his great toe. The first notch being thus made, about four feet
from the ground, he places the toe of his right foot in it, throws his
right arm round the tree, and with his left hand sticks the point of the
handle of his hatchet into the bark, as high up as he can reach, and
thus forms a stay to drag himself up with. This first step being made
good, he cuts another for his left foot, and so on, always clinging with
the left hand and cutting with the right, resting the who