458 CHINESE FISHING 



The Chronicles of the Elders of Hsiang Yang set forth that 

 the villages, when forbidden to catch the fine bream of the 

 Han river, achieved their purpose by erecting a fence, probably 

 of the same nature as that which in Lu Kuei-meng's History 

 is called Wei hsiao — " which name was taken from the kind of 

 fence used to catch crabs." 



The Shan fang ssu K'ao describe the meng sou as a basket 

 net, plaited of small bamboos : " The cover of its mouth was 

 woven of bamboo splints : to it hairy and bristling bamboos 

 were fixed : it gradually decreased in size from the mouth to 

 the junction with the hairy and bristling bamboos (elsewhere, 

 bamboos with whiskers) so preventing the fish from going out 

 after they had got in." 



From the same source we learn that the meng chou re- 

 sembled in shape a sieve. When the water became cold, the 

 fish hid in it. ^ It was used for fishing, but how it, the ch'u kuo, 

 or the chao were used or found useful, deponent maketh not 

 clear. But the hung, a sort of bamboo dam, holds the record. 

 With but one of these the people of Ch'ien T'ang obtained 

 during the Chin Dynasty a million fish a year, whence the 

 name Wan chiang hung, or " the milUon-worker dam." 2 

 The Odes of Lu Kuei-meng tell of a bamboo fence 10,000 feet 

 or about 2 miles long.^ 



We read in the Kuang chou of baiting the nets with the 

 whites of eggs. In the Ko Kai we encounter a method and 

 a net, both of which to me, at any rate, are new and may be 

 unique. The San ts'ai t'u hui states the ko kai was the 

 net commonly called the kai tou — literally " striking net." It 

 was an implement for taking fish out of a larger net. The 

 kai tou was brought down with force on to the larger net 

 near the fish, which thus were made to rebound into it. 



But the device, which the Ching chih ch'i wu lei describes 

 and gravely explains, must act as the limit at once of our 



^ Compare another trap which is made by " the people piUng up wooden 

 logs in the water. The fish, feeling cold, take shelter under these, and are 

 caught by means of a bamboo screen." Erh ya, apud Werner, p. 276. 



2 Yu yang tsa isu, apud Werner, p. 279. It should really be the ten- 

 thousand, not million, worker. 



3 Ibid., p. 281. 



