MISTICHTHYS 97 



I believe that sinarapan rise to the surface with the diurnal 

 movement of the plankton on which they feed. The unusual 

 method used to capture them is based on this habit and provides 

 a roosting place on which they gather in swarms. From time 

 immemorial they have been caught in large quantities by the 

 people living about the lake and are regarded by them as a 

 staple article of diet of superior delicacy. The right to catch 

 them is let by the municipality to the highest bidder, who then 

 has the exclusive fishing privilege for such part of the lake as 

 he has leased. 



A full-grown bamboo stalk, 10 meters or more in length, is 

 cut, the butt sharpened, the branches removed except the three 

 or four uppermost twigs, and a palm leaf wrapped around the 

 topmost meter or two. The contrivance, called abung, is then 

 set firmly into the lake bottom where the water is deep enough 

 to leave a little of the tip and a spur of the palm leaf pro- 

 truding above the surface so the fisherman can find it easily. 

 During the day the sinarapan come to rest upon the palm leaf. 

 About the middle of the afternoon the fisherman goes out to the 

 abung which he has scattered about in his leasehold, and begins 

 to fish with a triangular net, or so/rap, made of sinamay, a kind 

 of cloth made of abaca fiber. The sarap is mounted on a Y- 

 frame of bamboo and with it the abung is swept from the bot- 

 tom of the palm leaf to the top, and usually from a half liter to 

 a liter of sinarapan are caught on each. The fish are dumped 

 into a large basket from which the water drains at once, leaving 

 what appears to be a mass of some strange wriggling, skipping, 

 transparent, insect larvae, in which the large black eyes are the 

 only conspicuous part. 



The sinarapan cannot be caught along shore, though they can 

 readily be seen there, because in the shallow water they are 

 protected by the dense masses of Potamogeton, water hyacinth, 

 algae, and other plants amid which they dwell, and where a net 

 cannot be used. 



Mingled with the sinarapan and feeding upon them are larger 

 fishes of various kinds, so that occasionally eels, kotnog (Hemi- 

 ramphus cotnog H. M. Smith) , and several kinds of larger gobies 

 are caught when the fisherman sweeps his net over an abung. 



Sinarapan are fried in oil, or boiled with vegetables, and have 

 a delicious flavor. When more are caught than the local market 

 demands the surplus is salted or dried in cakes and exported to 

 the neighboring towns in Camarines Sur and Albay Provinces. 



