REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. CLXIX 

 OBSERVATIONS ON THE MULLET AND OYSTERS OF HAWAII. 



The principal food of the native Hawaiians, like the Japatiese, is fish, 

 the waters around the islands containing' many varieties, some in great 

 niimbers. The market in Honolulu is a Jarge, substantial structure, 

 paved, oi)en on the sides, clean, and well kept. The sale of fish is 

 under Government supervision, an inspector having charge of all fish 

 delivered, which if not sold after they have been taken from the water 

 a certain length of time are converted into fertilizer. 



The Chinese largely conduct this industry, not only in the open waters, 

 but in the private ponds, and their methods are similar to those in their 

 native country. A few natives also are employed in fishing. 



The mullet is the principal marketable fish, and those supplied are 

 largely taken along the reefs; but another source of this species is from 

 the ponds, and this afibrds the main supply during inclement weather. 



The fish-ponds are nearly as old as the peopling of the islands, for 

 even the traditions give no time when they were first built; but it is 

 supposed by the best authorities that they date back at least 500 or 600 

 years, and before the advent of civilization were the source of meat 

 supply in addition to the sea fishes, as these islands when discovered 

 contained no mammals. Fish and poi (fermented paste from the root 

 of the taro) were the diet of the ancient Hawaiians, and are very dear 

 to the modern natives, as fish and rice are to the Japanese. These fish- 

 ponds were very numerous on all the islands, but through disuse and 

 neglect many have become silted up and are now marshes, while the 

 walls have been destroyed in others by the progress of civilization and 

 the ravages of nature and are now dry land. Still quite a number are 

 in excellent condition and are used for raising mullet from the small 

 fry. There are about a dozen of these ponds in the vicinity of Hono- 

 lulu, ranging in size from 15 or 20 acres to 150 acres. 



The site selected for the pond usually is in shallow water, where the 

 configuration of the land is such as to reduce as much as possible the 

 length of the wall to be built, and in localities visited by the spawning 

 mullet. The Loko Hanaloa, on the Pearl Lochs, covers at least 150 

 acres, but the wall necessary to inclose this area is less than one-fourth 

 of a mile in length. The walls are constructed of volcanic or coral rock 

 and originally without gratings. Interstices in the wall formed by the 

 loose rock allowed the tidal flow. Prior to the advent of the mission- 

 aries, when the government of the island was in the hands of the native 

 chiefs and subchiefs, every native was obliged to contribute his labor 

 for several days, at certain definite periods, to his chief, and tradition 

 states that in building the walls lines of men were formed from the sea 

 to the hillsides and the rock passed from hand to hand. 



There is no artificml hatching of food-fishes on any of the Hawaiian 

 Islands, nor has there ever been any, so far as could be learned, but the 

 fry are driven or transported to these artificial ponds and there raised. 

 When the mullet come into the shoaler waters to spawn, the young fry 

 seek, instinctively, the protection of the shallowest water. In former 



