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FISHES.

effective, which cannot be classed under either of the three heads which we have named, being neither net, spear, nor hook. The last-named, however, in some form or other, is the principal device employed, and, strange as it may appear, notwithstanding all the superiority in art, and all the advantage of metals possessed by Europeans, the native-made hooks are preferred, as far more effective than ours. Many of them are really beautiful productions, and, when we consider their total want of metallic tools, excite our astonishment at the skill and ingenuity of the manufacturers. Our hooks are all made on one pattern, however varying in size; but the forms of theirs are exceedingly various, and made of different substances, viz., wood, shell, and bone. "The hooks made with wood are curious; some are exceedingly small, not more than two or three inches in length, but remarkably strong; others are large. The wooden hooks are never barbed, but simply pointed, usually curved inwards at the point, but sometimes standing out very wide, occasionally armed at the point with a piece of bone. The best are hooks ingeniously made of the small roots of the aito-tree, or iron-wood (Casuarina). In selecting a root for this purpose, they choose one partially exposed, and growing by the side of a bank, preferring such as are free from knots and other excrescences. The root is twisted into the shape they wish the future hook to assume, and allowed to grow till it has reached a size large enough to allow of the outside or soft parts being removed, and a sufficiency remaining to form the hook. Some hooks thus prepared are not much thicker than a quill, and