115 



of the chellal by torch lights made by burning coconut leaves 

 bound into long bundles. As many as 100 to 150 may be 

 taken in a single night by one boat. The hooks used in day 

 fishing are baited in an ingenious maimer appealing jointly 

 to the senses of smell and sight. The abdomen of a small 

 land hermit-crab, a cenobite, pinched off the poor beast's 

 body is thrust on the hook and pushed well up the shank, 

 the remain ler of the hook being hidlen by four or five cubical 

 pieces of the snowy white flesh of a tender coconut (Fig. 20). 



117. The same descriptions of nets are used in the Chetlat 

 lagoon as at Kiltan ; fishing in the home lagoon, except at 

 certain seasons, is not of much importance compared with that 

 at the great uninhabited reefs or pars already mentioned. To 

 these, especially to Perumal and Bitra pars, fishing trips are 

 frequently made from Chetlat during the fine weather season, 

 the boats remaining several weeks away at a time. There both 

 lining and netting are carried on, the latter b} T means of the 

 kandalai vala worked in conjunction with the ola vala. Sharks, 

 rays, sea-perches (Lutjanus spp.), bream [Lethrinus spp.) and 

 kora [Sciaena spp.) are among the chief fishes taken by lines 

 and nets at the pars. I was lucky enough to find a lsirge boat 

 or Ci Odam " just back from Perumal par the morning we left 

 Chetlat. The party had arrived during the night and had 

 entered the lagoon by moonlight. Partly dried fish lay every- 

 where ; on the bottom, in the rigging and on lines stretched 

 lengthwise from stem to stern. Among the rest I noted frag- 

 ments of several sharks and rays, notably some of that thorn- 

 backed ray par excellence^ Urogymnus asperrimus. and of a large 

 number of round bony fishes, principally of the genera Lethrinus, 

 Lutjanus, Serranus and Sciaena. Round fish were cut longitu- 

 dinally into connected pairs of narrow fillets, each scored 

 transversely and hung astride a rope or a spar to dry in the sun. 

 No salt is employed except- that contained in the sea- water in 

 which they are freely washed before being hung up. 



As at Kiltan our stay was all too brief, and as soon as I 

 nad made the above hasty inventory I had to hasten aboard 

 the Margarita early on the morning of 28th November ior 

 the long run to Ameni. 



118. On our way there we took several hauls of plankton 

 and coasted along the western side of the long island of Karda- 

 mat at which we had no time to halt, interesting as it 

 appeared to be. The lagoon is apparently quite narrow, 

 bounded as in Kiltan and Chetlat by a sea- washed reef on the 

 western side, by the island proper on the eastern. The reef is 



