JAPAN, CHINA AND THE PHILIPPINES 



possible to Ebisu. In one hand the Japanese fisherman holds a 

 stiff but very long bamboo rod with a ten-foot stout Une, the 

 hook baited -with a live bait. In the other, he holds a bamboo 

 staff, the end of which is a little paddle. He casts the live bait, 

 which swims and struggles, and with his left hand scoops up the 

 water with the paddle and scatters it about, making as much 

 noise, apparently to frighten the fish, as he can, at least that is 

 the opinion of the American anglers, who without Ebisu are watch- 

 ing this extraordinary performance on their own preserves. 

 Instead of alarming the tunas, it seems to attract them. In any 

 event, he sees the splash from far below and thinking it is a school 

 of fry feeding, rushes upward like an arrow from the bow, sees but 

 one fish and takes him, to be unceremoniously dragged aboard. 

 I once watched this astonishing spectacle for several hours ; 

 and the Japanese, aided by Ebisu and Daikoku, took a long-fin 

 tuna of twenty or thirty pounds every ten minutes, filled their 

 boat to overflowing, and steamed away to San Pedro, where the 

 fish were either canned (tinned as tunny) or sold to the fertilizer 

 plant to be ground up and sold to orange growers. In this and 

 other ways, the Japanese is devastating the fisheries of Western 

 America, and is accounted an extinguisher of game. 



Japan is washed by the fine tropical Gulf -Stream of the Pacific, 

 which sweeps up from the tropics, and moves in as the Kuro 

 SMwo, carrying balmy airs to Alaska and the North Pacific, 

 British Columbia, and the coast of CaUfornia, Washington and 

 Oregon. Up this great highway from the south come countless 

 hordes, and many varieties of fishes from No Man's Land. Some 

 remain in Japanese waters, others go on and on, in the Kuro 

 Shiwo until they reach Santa CataUna ; two notable instances 

 being the Catalina swordfish and the yeUow-fin tuna, both of 

 which were first known from Japan. The former is now more 

 plentiful at the California islands than it is in Japan, where it 

 was named Tetrapturus mitsuJcurii. It has been described, as 

 has the yellow-fin tuna, in another chapter, and these two fishes 

 can be considered the chief game fishes of the Mikado's dominion. 



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