202 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



off shore to well-known fishing reefs, which, by the way, are often in 

 very deep water, and return during the afternoon with a varied haul. 

 If successful, their home-coming is spectacular — they chant in chorus 

 and push their heavy boat through the water, sometimes skulled by as 

 many as a dozen oars, at the rate of a young steam launch, the boat 

 garnished at the prow, and the crew wearing fillets and loin cloths 

 of scarlet. It happens, fortunately, that the fishery is carried on 

 principally by hand trawls, for it is clear that when such a line, which 

 is sometimes a mile in length and with thousands of dependent hooks, 

 is pulled up again, even if fish are not taken, there will surely be 

 entangled a varied collection of objects — sponges, echinoderms and 

 rock fragments, the last often richly stocked with brachiopods, worm 

 tubes, corals, bryozoa. Happily, too, the collector of the station, Kuma 

 Aoki, is an ex-fisherman, for, knowing the townspeople, he serves as a 

 diplomat, suggesting regions which should be fished, and often accom- 

 panying the expeditions. To be mentioned in this connection is the 

 skill with which the fisher people are able to locate accurately fishing 

 grounds. By the use of a system of cross ranges, a master of the craft 

 like Kuma can return to a spot where he has lost a valuable fishing 

 line, and can secure it on a following day — a result which seems the 

 more remarkable to the novice when he reflects that the line may have 

 been lost in 400 fathoms of water. 



While the trawl line is the customary apparatus of the fishermen, 

 numerous devices are also employed in special fisheries, an account of 

 which has been given recently by a Russian ichthyologist (ef. Dr. P. 

 Schmidt, MT. d. Deutschen Seefischerei-Vereins, No. 2, p. 31, 1903). 

 I might mention particularly the use of earthenware urns which are 

 fastened together by straw rope, and sunken in the coves in the 

 neighborhood of the station. These are constantly used by octopus as 

 places of retreat during bright daylight, and to secure them the urns 

 have merely to be overhauled from time to time. Shell fish are often 

 taken in the usual eastern way by the use of a water glass and a dart- 

 pointed bamboo pole, or, without a water glass, the fisherman may 

 simply thrust his head below the surface of the water. Especially use- 

 ful to the collector are the numerous divers of Misaki, who are, I may 

 add, so skilful that they use no apparatus, not even weights for rapid 

 descent, but will swim down duck fashion, to a depth of twenty or 

 thirty feet. They hunt especially Haliotis, examining the rocks de- 

 liberately, and often remaining below several minutes. I may mention 

 that one of the familiar sounds which one hears when rowing in the 

 neighborhood of the station is the diver's peculiar whistle, by which 

 he expands his lungs before descending. 



One need hardly review the fauna in the region of Misaki. It is 

 enougb, perhaps, f<> say Hint bore focus many Favorable conditions for 



