A hawk presenting himself in an interval of conversation, Mr. Flinders thought it a fair opportunity of showing his new friends a specimen of the effect and certainty of his fire-arms.  He made them comprehend what was intended; but, while shifting the buck shot which were in the musket for a charge of small shot, their agitation was so great, that they seemed to be on the point of running into the woods; however, an expedient to keep them was devised; the seamen placed them in a cluster behind themselves, and in this situation they anxiously saw Mr. Flinders approach toward the bird, and fire.  What must have been his sensations at this moment! for the hawk flew away, though not indeed unhurt, as the natives noticed that the leg was broken.  This disappointment brought to his recollection how ineffectual had been some former attempts of his to impress them with an idea of the superior refinement of his followers.  Bong-ree, his musician, had annoyed his auditors with his barbarous sounds, and the clumsy exhibition of his Scotch dancers unaccompanied with the aid of music, had been viewed by them without wonder or gratification.

It is almost unnecessary to say that these people go naked.  They, however, wore belts round the waist, and fillets about the head and upper parts of the arm.  These were formed of hair, twisted into yarn-like threads, and then into bandages, mostly reticulated.  Indeed the inhabitants of this bay appeared to possess in general a very pointed difference from, if not a superiority over, those of New South Wales, particularly in their net-works.  A seine eighty feet in length, and the scoop nets which they use, have been mentioned.  To these may be added the bag in which they seemed to carry their portable property, and which was most probably of the same kind as those mentioned by Captain Cook; but they were seen of different sizes, and two that Mr. Flinders procured were very differently worked.  They were in general shaped somewhat like a breast plate; and, being suspended from the necks of the possessors, led him, previous to his first interview with them, to suppose they were some kind of defence for the more vital parts.  There was no doubt but that they were provided with nets for catching very large fish, or animals, as the fragments of a rotten one lying on the shore were picked up, the meshes of which were wide enough to admit the escape of a moderate sized porpoise; and the line of which it was made was from three quarters to an inch in circumference.  Probably the large animals which Mr. Flinders took to be sea lions might be the objects for which these large nets were fabricated.