OBSERVATIONS ON HOTARU-IKA WATASENIA SCINTILLANS. 95 
valley very near. 
Those facts show thai Hotaru-ika is a deep-sea animal, living during the 
day in a depth of 100 or more fathoms, and when the night is at hand, they 
approach to the coast, and after sunset they lay the eggs, and as soon as they 
finish their spawning, go back to the deep sea. 
B. FISHING CONDITION IN LOCAL PARTS. 
The whole coast of Toyama Prefecture is divided for convenience's sake, 
into 3 regions, — i. e. Shimminato region, Namerikawa region and Ikuji 
region. 
1. Shimminato Region. 
This consists of the western part extending from Yokata along the whole 
coast of Toyama Prefecture. The loo-F-line is the farthest off the coast in 
all that region, especially in llimi-gun, where the distance from the shore is 
about 3 or more miles generally, and the bottom of this coast shows a more 
gradual slope than that of others. 
This part has two principal submarine valleys coming near the shore, the 
first being that off Shimminato and Fushiki, and the second that off Yokata. 
And the greatest number of Fnkubc-aini are settled at the boundary walls of 
those two valleys and the nets which catch Hotarii-ika in great quantities 
also belong to those Fukube-aini. This region is again divided into 3 coasts. 
a) SkimDiiiiato coast (PI. Ill, fig. 2). This coast is the central part of the 
whole and has 3 rivers, i. e. Sho river, Shinsho river and the river flowing from 
Hojozu Lake, and there is, in front, the valley off Fushiki and Shimminato, 
the central part of which showed about 170 fathoms by my sounding. In 
the spring, Hotam-ika are gathered during the day with a drag-net which 
is used for catching the Hirata-ebi, a deep-sea shrimp, from a depth of lOO 
or more fathoms. 
The following table shows the amount of Hotarn-ika caught with Fukube- 
aini dXon^ this coast in 191 3. 
