Another favourite article of food is the dugong (Halicore australis) of which a few are killed every year. Although it extends along the east coast of Australia from Moreton Bay to Cape York, it appears to be nowhere very common. About Cape York and Endeavour Strait, the dugong is most frequently seen during the rainy season, at which time it is said by the natives to bring forth its young. When one is observed feeding close inshore* chase is made after it in a canoe. One of the men standing up in the bow is provided with a peculiar instrument used solely for the capture of the animal in question. It consists of a slender peg of bone, four inches long, barbed all round, and loosely slipped into the heavy, rounded, and flattened head of a pole, fifteen to sixteen feet in length; a long rope an inch in thickness, made of the twisted stems of some creeping plant, is made fast to the peg at one end, while the other is secured to the canoe. When within distance, the bowman leaps out, strikes the dugong, and returns to the canoe with the shaft in his hand. On being struck, the animal dives, carrying out the line, but generally rises to the surface and dies in a few minutes, not requiring a second wound, a circumstance surprising in the case of a cetaceous animal, six or eight feet in length, and of proportionate bulk. The carcass is towed on shore and rolled up the beach, when preparations are made for a grand feast. The flesh is cut through to the ribs in thin strips, each with its share of skin and blubber, then the tail is removed and sliced with a sharp shell as we would a round of beef. The blubber is esteemed the most delicate part; but even the skin is eaten, although it requires much cooking in the oven. (*Footnote. A slender, branchless, cylindrical, articulated seaweed, of a very pale green colour, was pointed out to me by a native as being the favourite food of the dugong.) COOKING IN THE OVEN. This oven is of simple construction--a number of stones, the size of the fist, are laid on the ground, and a fire is continued above them until they are sufficiently hot, the meat is then laid upon the bottom layer with some of the heated stones above it, a rim of tea-tree bark banked up with sand or earth is put up all round, with a quantity of bark, leaves, or grass on top, to retain the steam, and the process of baking goes on. This is the favourite mode of cooking turtle and dugong throughout Torres Strait, and on the east coast of the mainland I have seen similar fireplaces as far south as Sandy Cape. CULTURE OF THE YAM.