382 K.\MAEICHI KISHINOUTE: 



littoral grounds after a laeavy rain, and approach the coast in summer, after a 

 long draught. In the Bay of Yenoura, at the foot of Mount Fuji, tunnies are 

 sometimes kept alive, suiTounded by a wall of strong netting near the shore. 



Pelagic scombroid fishes often crowd under drift wood or algae, or follow 

 whales or vessels. Acanthocybiura sdanderi is attracted to bundles of wood 

 moored at the surface of the sea, purposely devised by fishermen.. 



Fishes of the Cybüdae are voracious and audacious. They strive to get 

 out of a pound-net, pushing their head through the meshes at the bottom at 

 night, though in the day-time they are afraid to pass through meshes. 



Plecostean fishes are especially timid, as was observed by previous writers, 

 and do not dare to pass through the meshes of a net, imtil they are confiued 

 in a narrow space, though the meshes are wide, expanded, and large enough 

 to be passed freely. ^Neither do they enter a dark cove, nor approach very 

 near a rocky precipitous wall. When some fish are entangled in a net, 

 and are sti'ugghng to eseajie, the remaining fish of the school are scared away. 

 It is, moreover, told that they are tenified and disappear when they see blood. 

 Thus the throwing out of bilge-water, contaminated with blood, is not per- 

 mitted at the fisliing ground, and with the same reason long lines of sharks 

 are considered to be disadvantageous to bonito fishing, as sharks shed blood 

 when hooked. 



Generally the male fish come filmst, in the middle of the fishing season the 

 number of both sexes is neai'ly equal, and at the end of the season the femde 

 fish predominate. 



The habits of the scombroid fishes are often influenced by tides. Mackerels 

 often float towards the sui-face of the sea, shortly after the flood-tide. Some 

 seerfishes ai'e said to be very active in the ebb-tide, and Gymnosarda nuda la 

 said to bite hooks well, when there is no tidal cm-rent. Some tunnies are said 

 to resort to the shore with the flood-tide. 



Bonitos, except Euihynnus yaito, axe said to be veiy clever in making a 

 school of small fish very dense, by swimming round the school of the victims, 

 and devouring stray or forelom individuals gradually. On the conti-ary, tunnies 

 and seerfishes swim into a school of victims, and dispei-se them. The feeding 

 of a fish seems not always the same thi-oughout the year. The striped bonito 

 is said to decline to take l>ait in certain seasons, generally in mid-summer. 



