When shells are sighted the glass is discarded, the lungs are filled several times and the air expelled slowly. Upon reaching a certain fit condition a long breath is taken until the lungs are inflated to their utmost capacity; the diver then suddenly lets go, sinks a few feet below the surface, turns quickly and head-first swims rapidly to the bottom. Arriving there, he pulls himself along by grasping the coral branches and breaking the shells loose from their anchorage with his right hand, which is protected by a cloth wrapping, and stows them away in a cocoanut fibre basket slung over the shoulder. This done, he straightens himself and shoots to the surface with astonishing rapidity, seeming to leap up from the water as he arrives with almost sufficient impetus to carry him into the waiting canoe. In a few minutes he is ready to dive again. In some localities where divers were employed the women were preferred, not because they could do better work always, but one could depend on them more safely. This was true of the divers in Torres Straits between Queensland and New Guinea. Before dress-diving was introduced these naked natives would dive into ten or twelve fathoms and bring up an oyster under each arm. The shells were large, weighing three to six pounds together and sometimes ten, but they contained few pearls and those were generally small. As they were brought up the oysters were searched for pearls and the fish used for food. The shells sold in Sydney then for eight to nine hundred dollars the ton. Years ago the women of Chile about the Bay of Concepcion claimed as a right the fishing for mussels. The men rowed them out to the beds and stuck long poles into the shoal below, down which the women would slide, returning with both hands full of mussels. The fishing was done from canoes, each holding one man and one woman. The women did not consider this a hardship but a privilege of which they were quite jealous, for they devoted the proceeds of their catch to the purchase of finery.