462 CHINESE FISHING 



as to shelter and food. Rockeries were erected in the ponds to 

 shelter the alevin from the sun. Bananas were planted on 

 the sides and banks, because the rain which falls from their 

 leaves during a shower promoted health. Forbidden, however, 

 were all pigeons, whose dung was held hurtful, and also (con- 

 trary to our experience of the haunt of many and good fish) 

 all willows, whose leaves were deemed inimical to the growth, 

 even to the hfe of the fry. 



" The earhest pisciculturist of ancient China," states Mr. 

 Yen, " was T'ao Chu-kung,i ^yho hved in the fifth century B.C. 

 His method of fish culture combined both knowledge and 

 ignorance. He dug a pond of the size of an acre, leaving nine 

 small islands scattered about it. In one pond he placed twenty 

 female carp, three feet in length, and four males of similar size. 

 This was done in the month of March. Exactly one year later, 

 there were 5000 fishes one foot long, 10,000 two feet long, 

 and 15,000 three feet long. In the third year the number had 

 multiplied ten or twenty times, in the fourth year it was not 

 possible to keep count." 



While congratulating T'ao on the nimbleness of his enume- 

 rators and his success, and haggling not at the numbers (for 

 the CypridcB breed proHfically), both the disparity in growth 

 and the similarity of the exactly graded variations in size of 

 these, all yearling, fish are unto the practical pisciculturist a 

 stumbling-block, which neither cannibaUsm nor luck of food 

 can displace. 



But to return to T'ao, or rather to his islands. " The 

 nine islands were to deceive the fishes, who would beheve that 

 they were in the big ocean, travelling round the nine continents." 

 We may complacently smile at these fancies, but at any rate 

 let us humbly recall the 2300 years we took to solve the 

 problem of the generation of eels, and the fantastic theories 

 propounded by Aristotle, by Izaak Walton, and others, some 

 of which, e.g. the Cairncross, read as ludicrous as T'ao's " Happy 

 Isles." 2 



Fan Li apparently was the first to practise fish breeding 



1 Op. cit. This is but another name assumed by Fan Li. 

 * See antea, 251 ff. 



