ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



statement it is certain that 

 they never saw this net, for 

 had they done so a figure 

 and description would have 

 surely been given. 



Van der Sande (1907) 

 states that a spider - web 

 fish-net (such as described 

 by Pratt — (see my paper 

 in the Bulletin for March, 

 1918) is not known in that 

 part of Dutch New Guinea 

 explored by him. Likewise 

 Meek (1913) does not think 

 it is so used, and character- 

 izes Pratt's account as a 

 fairy story, though he agrees 

 that such nets "were (used) 

 for prawns or very small 



fish." He bases his negative conclusions on 

 the fact that a native left such a net made 

 for taking butterflies outside in the rain over 

 night, and when morning came all the stickiness 

 was gone, and gone consequently was its use- 

 fulness for butterfly catching since the threads 

 were glazed all over. However, there is no rea- 

 son to judge from this that it could not be used 

 to catch fish, and in fact he says that it is so 

 used for taking small fish. 



The next references, however, are absolutely 

 positive and corroborating as they do Pratt's 

 account (1906), leave no doubt that such a net 

 is actually used by the natives of New Guinea. 

 It should be stated furthermore that the author 

 to be quoted seems to have had no knowledge of 

 Pratt's book. 



Mr. Robert W. Williamson spent some months 

 in the Mafulu district of New Guinea inland 

 from Yule Island and Redscar Bay — these two 

 being the basal corners of a triangle of which 

 Mafulu was the apex. Returning to England 

 he wrote two books, from which the following 

 extract is taken. 



In both his books Williamson, after describ- 

 ing a dip net of hand-woven mesh, goes on to 

 say, using the same words : 



"The other form (of dip net) is also found 

 on a looped cane ; but the loop in this case is 

 larger and more oval in shape, and the netting 

 is made of the web of a large spider. To make 

 it they take the already looped cane to where 

 there are a number of such webs, and twist the 

 looped end round and round among the webs, 

 until there is stretched across the loop a double 

 or treble or quadruple layer of web, which, 

 though fiat when made, is elastic, and when 

 used becomes under pressure more or less bag- 

 shaped." 



E. R . S. . Pho, 



MUTTON FISH (.LUTIANUS ANALIS) 



Before leaving this interesting subject there 

 may be given a use of the spider's web which 

 is intermediate between that described above 

 and that which will be described in full in an- 

 other and later paper. The account referred to 

 of this use is found in H. B. Guppy's book "The 

 Solomon Islands and Their Natives," London, 

 1887. On page 158 he writes: 



"The following ingenious snare was employed 

 on one occasion by my natives in Treasury (Is- 

 land), when I was anxious to obtain for Dr. 

 Gunther some small fish that frequented one of 

 the streams on the north side of the island. I 

 was very desirous to have some of these fish, 

 and my natives were equally anxious to display 

 their ingenuity in catching them. They first 

 bent a pliant switch into an oval hoop, about a 

 foot in length, over which they spread a cover- 

 ing of stout spider-web which was found in the 

 wood hard by. Having placed this hoop on the 

 surface of the water, buoying it upon two light 

 sticks, they shook over it a portion of a nest of 

 ants, which formed a large kind of tumor on 

 the trunk of a neighboring tree, thus covering 

 the web with a number of struggling young in- 

 sects. This snare was then allowed to float 

 down the stream, when the little fish, which 

 were between two and three inches long, com- 

 menced jumping up at the white bodies of the 

 ants from underneath the hoop, apparently not 

 seeing the intervening web on which they lay. 

 as it appeared nearly transparent in the water. 

 In a short time one of the small fish succeeded 

 in getting its snout and gills entangled in the 

 web, when a native at once waded in, and plac- 

 ing his hand under the entangled fish, secured 

 the prize. With two of these web-hoops we 

 caught nine or ten of these little fish in a quar- 

 ter of an hour." 



