COMMERCIAL FISHERIES OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
725 
mouth closed up. It is then emptied into the canoe and the operation repeated until 
the fish become shy. The opelu, when eaten raw, is said to prevent seasickness. 
The natives sometimes construct the above net from twine made from the bark of 
the olona ( Touchardia lati folia) bush or shrub, which grows in large shoots. These 
are cut down and the bark stripped off in bundles and put into running water, to pre- 
vent fermentation and in order that the pulpy matter, etc., may decompose. After 
four or five days, or when it becomes thoroughly clean, the bark is taken out and 
spread on hard- wood boards 6 feet long and 8 or 10 inches wide. The wood used for 
these boards — kauwila — is very scarce and valuable now. When the bark has been 
thus spread the inside of it is carefully scraped by means of a bone 2i inches wide 
and 10 inches long, with one side beveled to an edge, and the perfectly clean 
fiber is dried. It is then stripped into fine threads and twisted together by women, 
who roll the strands on their bare thighs with their hands, making a cord that is 
stronger than linen and will last for generations. 
For catching nehu (anchovies and silversides), very small fish much used fox- 
bait and for food when dried, a bag net (upena nehu) is made from a piece of netting 
about a fathom square, attached on two sides to sticks about 3 feet in length 
and fulled in at the bottom on a l'ope shorter than the upper one and forming an 
irregular square opening to a shallow bag, which is supplemented by a long, narrow 
bag about 6 feet deep. Ropes hung with dx-ied ki leaves are attached to each side of 
the net, and these ropes ai-e run around the school to drive the fish into the net. 
Nehu fishing is generally carried on in deep water. 
A bag net (upena pua), made in the same manner, is used for catching very 
young ama-ama (mullet). Instead of ropes with ki leaves, the “sea Convolvulus , 
genex-ally found growing on the beach, is twisted — leaves, branchjets, and all — into 
two thick bushy ropes some 15 to 20 feet in length, and these are attached on each 
side of the net to the kuku (side sticks). These lines are then drawn forward in 
a semicircle, sweeping the shoals of fry befoi-e them till enough ax-e partly inclosed, 
when the two fx-ee ends are rapidly drawn together in a circle, which is gradually 
reduced till the fry are all driven into the bag.” 
A bag net veiy similar to the above is used in fishing for ohua, a small fish very 
highly px-ized by the natives, which lives in and on the lirnu kala, a coarse alga that 
grows on coi-al in shallow water. Long ropes with dried ki leaves are employed, and 
the nxethod of opei’ation is the same as already described. 
A bag net called kapxxni nehu is also used in catching- nehu. This bag is about 6 
feet deep and 3 feet wide at the mouth, and two parallel sticks are used to keep the 
mouth open. When a school of nehu is seen working its way along close inshore, 
two men go out with the net, each holding one of the sticks. Others get in the rear 
of and on the sides of the school and frighten the fish into the bag, after which the 
sticks are brought together, thus closing the bag, which is then hauled ashox-e or put 
xnto a canoe and emptied. These bags are of very fine mesh and are made of a 
certain kind of Chinese netting, which is said to be exceedingly strong. 
A bag net called upena uhu is employed in catching the uhu, some highly prized 
labroid fishes, chiefly species of Calotomus. This is made of a square piece of netting 
which has been gathered slightly on the ropes and attached at the four corners to 
slender, strong sticks tied together at the middle in such way that they will cross 
