458 CHINESE FISHING 
The Chronicles of the Elders of Hsiang Yang set forth that 
the villages, when forbidden to catch the fine bream of the 
Han river, achieved their purpose by erecting a fence, probably 
of the same nature as that which in Lu Kuei-méng’s History 
is called Wet hsiao—‘ which name was taken from the kind of 
fence used to catch crabs.” 
The Shan t'ang ssu K’ao describe the méng sou as a basket 
net, plaited of small bamboos: “ The cover of its mouth was 
woven of bamboo splints: to it hairy and bristling bamboos 
were fixed: it gradually decreased in size from the mouth to 
the junction with the hairy and bristling bamboos (elsewhere, 
bamboos with whiskers) so preventing the fish from going out 
after they had got in.” 
From the same source we learn that the méng chou re- 
sembled in shape a sieve. When the water became cold, the 
fish hid init.! It was used for fishing, but how it, the ch’u kuo, 
or the chao were used or found useful, deponent maketh not 
clear. But the hung, a sort of bamboo dam, holds the record. 
With but one of these the people of Ch’ien T’ang obtained 
during the Chin Dynasty a million fish a year, whence the 
name Wan chiang hung, or “the million-worker dam.” 2 
The Odes of Lu Kuei-méng tell of a bamboo fence 10,000 feet 
or about 2 miles long.’ 
We read in the Kuang chou of baiting the nets with the 
whites of eggs. In the Ko Kat we encounter a method and 
a net, both of which to me, at any rate, are new and may be 
unique. The San ts’at t’u hui states the ko kai was the 
net commonly called the kat tou—literally “striking net.’’ It 
was an implement for taking fish out of a larger net. The 
kat tou was brought down with force on to the larger net 
near the fish, which thus were made to rebound into it. 
But the device, which the Ching chih ch’i wu lei describes 
and gravely explains, must act as the limit at once of our 
1 Compare another trap which is made by “ the people piling up wooden 
logs in the water. The fish, feeling cold, take shelter under these, and are 
caught by means of a bamboo screen.” Evh ya, apud Werner, p. 276. 
2 Yu yang tsa tsu, apud Werner, p. 279. It should really be the ten- 
thousand, not million, worker. 
3 Tbid., p. 281. 
