8 



CALIFOKXJA FISH AND GAME. 



Chinese are very expert in handling the nets and work rapidly, each 

 man with a particular duty to perform. The time in which the nets 

 have to be lifted is limited nsually to about half an hour. They can 

 not begin sooner for the nets can not be lifted when the current is 

 strong. If they are not gotten out before the tide turns the nets begin 

 to swing the other way and they become tangled and the catch is lost. 

 When tides are so strong that there is danger of carrying the nets away 

 they reduce the current pressure by tying the upper edge of the nets 

 farther down on the brails. If the tides are extremely swift they reduce 

 the number of nets. 



Shrimp Drying. After the nets are all lifted the junk sails back to 

 the dock at its camp, where the catch is carried in baskets, Chinese 



Fig. 4. Shrimp boiling vat, showing skimmers and rakes hang- 

 ing on crude chimney. Point San Pedro, 1910. Photograph by 

 N. B. Scofield. 



style, to the boiling vat. This vat is about four by eight feet and 

 eighteen inches deep, witli wooden sides, the bottom being of sheetiron 

 bent up around the sides. It is built in with bricks and mud and to 

 heat the water both wood and coal is used. Fresh water to which rock 

 salt has been added is used in the vats. The shrimps, together Avith the 

 fish caught with them, are poured in, ten or twelve baskets at a time, 

 and boiled from ten to fifteen minutes. They are then dipped out with 

 a strainer and put into baskets to be carried to the drying ground. 

 Here the shrimps and fish, the latter usually small and delicate with 

 the flesh boiled from the bones, are spread out together to dry in the sun. 

 When the weather is good the shrimps will dry in about four days, 

 v/hen tlit'v are gatliered topctlicr and i-olled with cleated, wooden I'ollers 



