AND STRANGE FISHERMEN 



mid-air for a minute or so by means of its long breast- 

 fins. This the inhabitants of the South Seas shoot with 

 arrows and eat. Another delicacy among these islanders 

 is the palate^ a slender marine animal three inches long, 

 whose body is divided into joints, each of which is supplied 

 with a pair of gills ; the natives gather these in great 

 numbers from the coral reefs, and bake them wrapped in 

 the leaves of the bread-fruit tree. 



One of the most extraordinary nets to be found in the 

 whole world is that used on the New Guinea coast ; a net 

 of Nature's own providing. A local spider is in the habit 

 of weaving a web about six feet in diameter, the meshes 

 of which are so tough that they will not only resist con- 

 siderable water-pressure, but will easily stand the weight 

 of a one-pound fish. The canny natives cut long bamboo 

 poles, bend the ends into a loop, and leave them all day in 

 the forest where the spiders are most plentiful ; when they 

 return they find that the industrious creature has con- 

 verted each bamboo into a sort of gigantic tennis-racquet 

 or lacrosse-bat, and with this the fisherman retires to the 

 nearest stream or back-water and whips out the fish singly 

 as they rise. 



The Sandwich islanders and the people of the Ladrones 

 are exceptional as savage fishermen, having no fear of 

 fairly deep water. The latter think nothing of going 

 fishing in thirteen fathoms in canoes which British fisher- 

 men would laugh or shudder at ; light-built proas, but 

 rigged with one sail, in the construction of which their 

 ancestors most likely copied the Malay pirates. The boat 

 which the .Hawaiians use for fishing and porpoise-hunt- 



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