64 



where an ordinary seine could not he used ; hence the invention of the 

 parse-seine, used in America to capture the menhaden, an oil-bearing 

 Clupea, which appears in vast shoals like its cousins the herring and 

 sardine J the fishermen search for shoals and when found follow them 

 as long as possible using the purse-seine for their capture. The 

 difference in this seine is that round the foot of the net are fastened a 

 number of metal rings through which ropes are rove ; by liauling on 

 these ropes the bottom of the net is closed up forming a vast basin, 

 bag, or purse, so that when the net has been shot round a shoal and 

 the bottom ropes hauled in, the fish are absolutely enclosed and the 

 net may then be hauled to the side of the smack and emptied by boats 

 and dip nets at leisure. Obviously the depth of the water is unim- 

 portant, so that the surface- swimming shoals of sardine and mackerel 

 can be searched for and followed far out to sea. As stated in my 

 West Coast Report, this is one great desideratum of our fisheries, viz., 

 the ability to fish at any distance off shore and not merely inshore 

 when the sardine and mackerel shoals choose to come and be caught; 

 the large boat is the first necessity, and the deep-sea purse net is 

 the next. The Japanese net is often some 20 to 25 fathoms depth, and 

 up to 150 fathoms in length, so that vast quantities can be taken at 

 a shot. 



138. (3) TJie fixed or 'pomvl-net and its congener.^ {OsJiiki-ami, etc.). 

 — These are structures of some permanence, fixed in one position 

 along the coast, into which the fish are guided by leader or scare nets 

 or driven by boats and shouting ; the fish caught are mostly the 

 migratory surface fish. They have many different names in Japanese 

 according to their nature and perhaps the class of fish for which they 

 are set ; in English or rather iu American, for America possesses them 

 in great numbers, they are called set nets, pound nets, trap nets, etc., 

 if erected with nets, and traps, weirs, etc., when built of bamboo, 

 reeds, and so forth ; the word " trap " will be used for brevity 

 merely. There are apparently about 50,000 of these traps in Japan 

 if we include pound nets and Shiki-ami, and I saw many in my tours. 

 The accompanying drawings are taken chiefly from the catalogue of 

 the Japanese Fisheries l^jxhibition of 1897 and another Japanese 

 publication, but I have added a rougii sketch of similar American 

 constructions to show the similarity. 



139. These traps are necessarily constructed along the coast 

 especially between islands where there is a good current up which the 

 fish stream ; at right angles or so to the coast is run a leader (guide or 

 scare) net or bamboo wall, which may be hundreds of fathoms long ; 

 on striking this obstruction, the fish turn out seawards along the guide 

 net and find themselves again obstructed by the trap proper or pound ; 

 if they try to avoid this there are " barrier^' or " heart " nets which 

 insensibly turn them back again towards the trap ; eventually they 



