Another abundant source of food is supplied to the native population of New Holland at certain seasons, in particular situations, by the various sorts of fish which abound on its coasts, and in its bays and inlets. From this, most probably, arises the fact observed by Captain Flinders, that the borders of bays, and entrances of rivers, are in New Holland always most thickly peopled. And Collins mentions a sort of fancied superiority, which these people pretend to, above those that dwell in the more inland parts. "The natives of the coast," he says, "when speaking of those in the interior, constantly expressed themselves with contempt and marks of disapprobation." So very similar are the airs and vanity of a savage, to those in which civilised man indulges. The three most common modes of catching fish are, by spearing them, taking them by means of a weir constructed across places which are left nearly dry at low water, or after a flood, and enclosing them in a net, prepared by the women out of grassy fibres, and one of their greatest efforts of ingenuity.[51] Nothing very remarkable is to be noticed in these modes of fishing, except it be the speed with which they run along the shore, and the certainty with which they aim their spears at the inhabitants of the shallow bays and open lakes. As surely as the natives disappear under the surface of the water, so surely will they reappear with a fish writhing upon the point of their short spears; and even under water their aim is always correct. One traveller, Sturt, is of opinion that they seldom eat the finny tribes when they can get anything else, but this idea seems scarcely to agree with the report of others. At all events, whether from choice or not, a large proportion of their subsistence is derived from the waters. With regard to the cookery of their fish, the Australian barbarians are said to have a most admirable method of dressing them, not unworthy of being copied by other nations. If the fish are not simply broiled upon the fire, they are laid in a piece of paper bark, which is wrapt round them, as paper is folded round a cutlet; strings of grass are then wound tightly about the bark and fish, which is slowly baked in heated sand, covered with hot ashes; when it is sufficiently cooked, the bark is opened, and answers the purpose of a dish; it is, of course, full of juice and gravy, not a drop of which has escaped. The flavour of many sorts of fish thus dressed is said to be delicious, and sometimes pieces of kangaroo and other meats are cooked in the same manner. [51] "Among the few specimens of art manufactured by the primitive inhabitants of these wilds, none come so near our own as the net, which, even in its quality, as well as in the mode of knotting, can scarcely be distinguished from those made in Europe."--MITCHELL'S _Three Expeditions_, vol. ii. p. 153.