"Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific
Throwing in the balls, one by one, I watched. Three of them were at once swallowed by a lively young hawk-bill turtle, and the remainder were soon seized by some yellow eels and rock-cod, before the larger and slower-moving turtle (of which there were about twenty in the dock) discerned them. I waited about on the reef in the vicinity for quite three hours or more, returning to the pool at intervals and examining the condition of its occupants. But, at the end of that time, the oap had apparently taken no effect, and, as night was near, I returned to the village.
On the following morning, I again went to the “dock,” lowered my line, and caught six rock-cod. In the stomachs of two I found the undigested fibres of the oap which, through expansion, they had been unable to dislodge; but that it had not had any effect on them I was sure, for these two fish were as strong and vigorous when hooked as were the four others in whose stomachs there was no sign of oap.
The young hawkbill turtle, however, was floating on the surface, and seemed very sick.
Here is a point for ichthyologists. Are the digestive arrangements of a turtle more delicate than those of a fish?
1
The name “Burdekin” hat been given to these ducks became they are to common on the river of that name. Their wings are pure white and black.
2
Lit., “We blacks did not spear any cattle.”
3
The “wise man from Germany,” I ascertained a year or two afterwards, was the well-known J. S. Kubary, a gentleman who, although engaged in trading pursuits, yet enriched science by his writings on his discoveries in Micronesia.
