438 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES 
enforced its beneficial effects would be soon apparent. Under the 
present conditions the fishery, instead of increasing as a result of the 
greater efforts put forth in recent years, has slightly decreased since 
1900. 
The fine-meshed nets in such general use throughout the islands, and 
more especially in Pearl Harbor, destroy the young of other species, 
notably the akule and ulua, both of which are valuable food fishes. 
Thousands of these, from 2 inches in length up, are caught and sold, 
and, as the law does not protect them, nothing can be done to stop the 
slaughter. The data collected for the year 1903 show a decrease in 
the catch of ulua of 177,080 pounds since 1900. In the same period of 
time the catch of akule quite materially increased, but this was owing 
to the introduction by the Japanese of a method of catching them with 
hook and line. 
Heretofore all efforts to prohibit the use of these fine-meshed nets 
have been blocked by the native members of the legislature, who 
claimed that it would deprive their native constituents of the oppor- 
tunity to gratify their desire to eat little fishes raw. Of these the 
favorite species is the nehu, which never grows large. It, however, 
is an important food of larger and more valuable fishes, and for this 
if for no other reason should ve protected. The fine-meshed nets are 
used almost entirely by the Japanese, who throw away probably one- 
fourth of the catch in some localities, notably in Pearl Harbor, 
order to keep up the present high prices of fish. 
THE COMMERCIAL SPECIES. 
At the time of the 1901 investigation considerable difficulty was 
experienced in classifying the commercial species, owing to the lack 
of scientific data on Hawaiian fishery products, nearly all of which 
bore native names, and but few of which were to be found in other 
United States waters. To make confusion worse confounded, the fisher- 
men, in many instances, call the same species by different names at 
various stages in its life, and also when there is a slight variation in 
its external appearance. The study of the large collections made 
under the auspices of the Bureau of Fisheries in 1901 and 1902 and 
by private collectors has greatly aided in identifying the various species 
and in straightening out the tangle of native common names. Even yet 
a few of the latter are unidentified, but these are species unimportant 
commercially. In order to prevent confusion and misapprehension 
among the fishermen and others, a list of the commercial species has 
been prepared, showing the names used in the statistical tables; and 
where two or more species have been included under one name, as 
in the case of the young of the species when it bears a different name 
from the adult, the other names are shown in the list immediately 
