The habits of the turtle are to swim lazily along near the surface of the water, about half immersed, biting and smelling at the various aquatic plants which they pass, and turning their long ungainly necks in all directions.

When alarmed by the approach of a native the turtle instantly sinks to the bottom like a stone, and its pursuer, putting out his foot, the toes of which he uses to seize anything, just as we do our fingers, gropes about with it in the weeds, until he feels the turtle, and then, holding it to the ground, plunges his hands and arms in and seizes his prey.

I have known two or three of them to catch fourteen turtle, none of which weighed less than one, and many of them as much as two or three pounds, in the course of a very short time.
These freshwater turtle are cooked by being baked, shell and all, in the hot ashes; when they are done a single pull removes the bottom shell, and the whole animal remains in the upper one, which serves as a dish.

They are generally very fat, and are really delicate and delicious eating; the natives are extremely fond of them, and the turtle season is looked forward to by them as a very important period of the year.
BIRDS.
Birds form a very considerable article of food for the natives, and their modes of killing them are so various that it would be impossible to enumerate them all.

Emus are killed in precisely the same manner as kangaroos, but as they are more prized by the natives a greater degree of excitement prevails when an emu is slain; shout succeeds shout, and the distant natives take up the cry until it is sometimes re-echoed for miles: yet the feast which follows the death is a very exclusive one; the flesh is by far too delicious to be made a common article of food, hence heavy penalties are pronounced against young men and unauthorized persons who venture to touch it, and these are invariably rigidly enforced.
KILLING COCKATOOS.
Perhaps as fine a sight as can be seen in the whole circle of native sports is the killing cockatoos with the kiley, or boomerang.