Islands. An incident of this sort could reduce the South Seos fishery, with 

 its vast and limitless resources, overnight from the flourishing condition to 

 which it has been built by past endeavors to complete destruction. It would 

 require a many times greater effort to recover from such a situation than it 

 did to build up the industry in the first place. 



In actual fishing poisonous fishes are always taken in large numbers 

 along with the useful fishes. Since the poisonous fishes are completely 

 lacking in commercial value, they are released again. This has the effect of 

 protecting the poisonous fishes and gives them a greater power of propagation 

 in comparison ».lth the useful fishes, the ultimate effect of which will be to 

 enable them to drive out the useful species. Particularly in the case of 

 fishes like the akamaau . when they are taken in great numbers, the large fish, 

 whj.ch are over 2 feet in length, often damage the nets. Furthermore these 

 fish are voracious and they eat useful fishes, thus causing great damage. 

 Hhen a fish like the akamasu . which is highly valued at other islands, is 

 treated as a poisonous fish the economic effects are great. Countermeasures 

 against this situation might be to catch these fish at a certain season, say 

 before the spawning season, and thus almost stop their propagation, or if their 

 toxicity originates in their food, they night be held in ponds for a certain 

 period of time until the toxicity was lost and in such a fashion poisonous 

 fishes could be made nonpoisonous, 



7. Conclusions 



The following conclusions can be drawn from this study: 



(1) Large fishes which inhabit the waters beyond the reefs are likely to be 

 poisonous. It is thought that the toxicity may be peculiar to fully matured 

 fish or that it may be related to the gonads. It may be that because of the 

 water temperature (surface temperature 27 - 28°) these fish contain ripe 

 eggs more often than do fish in Japanese waters end that therefore they can 

 produce poisoning at apy time. Since the same species may or may not be 

 toxic at different islands or even at different places within the same reef, 

 it may perhaps come down to a question of a particular type of food found 

 only in particular places, 



(2) Since people differ individually in their physical makeup, it may be that 

 in some cases where poisoning was caused by something else the story was 

 passed along that a certain fish was toxic » 



(3) It is also thought possible that some of these poisonings may be ptomaine 

 poisoning. In this area the fish peddlers carry their wares on their heads 

 in boxes (about 3 feet long by 2 feet wide by 6 inches deep) with 2 to ^-inch 

 squares of wire screen in each side (for ventilation). The fish in the shops 

 iu:e so covered wi.th flies that it is hard to tell what species they are. Ice 

 is never put on the fish as it is in Japan and consequently the fish are 

 dried out, the color of the rkin is faded, thp elasticity of the muscles is 

 lost, and the fish looks almost as if it had been exposed directly to the 

 rays of the burning sun. Under such circumstances the protein of the flesh 

 is decomposed and one feels deeply that eating such fish may give rise to 

 so-called ptomaine poisoning. 



In making this study I took the reports of fishermen as a fo\indation. I 

 am very much ashamed of the fact that I was unable fully to carry out the 

 task assigned me because of the siiort duration of oy stay in the field and the 

 continuous unfavorable ^^ather. 



As for the character of the toxic element, at present we are limited to 

 the conjectures set forth above, and our knowledge on the subject is extremely 



196 



