46o CHINESE FISHING 



patiently for air-bubbles, like a destroyer hunting German 

 U-boats, to rise to the surface and betray the fishes' lair in the 

 mud, and then plunged home his depth-charge, or rather his 

 bident. 



Fishing by cormorant was unique and peculiar to China 

 alone, according to Mr. Yen, who adds that " in our country 

 it was confined to one family, the Liu.i The fishes thus caught, 

 however, are limited to those of small streams, unpalatable, 

 and eaten only by very poor people." 



Few realise how great is the patience necessary for the 

 training of an expert cormorant, or how good is the reward. 

 These seemingly altruistic piscatores are taught to fish an area 

 in flocks, and at a given signal return to their master with 

 their prey, made unswallowable by means of a neck-ring. 

 One boatman watches twelve to twenty of the birds, each one 

 of whom, although hundreds may similarly be hunting the 

 same water, knows its own master. If one seize a fish too 

 heavy for him, another comes to its aid, and together they 

 fetch it to the boat. More generally the ally (not unlike 

 certain nations in history) hustles the weaker and despoils 

 him of his catch, and of his titbit reward. 



The barndoor fowl, whose hospitable warmth and creduhty 

 all the world abuses, usually hatches out the young birds, 

 whose piscatorial propensities increase and accentuate on a 

 diet of fish hash and eel's blood. 



A curious and vicarious manner of Indian fishing can be 

 witnessed on the Brahmaputra. Birds of the cormorant 

 family range themselves midstream in line, and advance to- 

 wards a bank, making a prodigious pother by flapping the 

 water with their wings. The fish, panic-stricken, flee to the 

 shallows and even throw themselves on land. The birds, still 

 in close array, pursue and gorge themselves on their penned-in 

 prey. 



^ op. cit., but in Japan, especially at Gifu, the cormorant is in common 

 use, while D. Ross, The Land of Five Rivers and Sindh (London, 1883), states 

 that on the Indus not only the Cormorant (Graculus carbo), but also the 

 Pelican and the Otter are similarly employed. Early in the seventeenth 

 century an attempt was made to introduce Cormorant fishing into England as 

 a sport, but failed (cf. Wright, op. cit., p. 182). There was at one time a 

 court official, styled The Master of the Herons. 



