746 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
The captain of the vessel says there was no lack of fish at any time, and if the 
fishermen could have been properly trained to the work the experiment would have 
been a brilliant success. Most of the fishing was done with trolling and hand lines, 
as the nets would not work well on the coral reefs, frequently tearing, and the 
numerous sharks about the reefs also did much damage to them. 
FISH PONDS. 
The most interesting of the fishery resources of the islands are the fish ponds. 
This is the onty place in United States territory where fish ponds are found on such an 
immense scale and put to such general and beneficent use. The time of the building 
of many of them goes back into the age of fable, the Hawaiians, for instance, 
attributing the construction of one of the most ancient, the deep-water fish pond 
wall at the Huleia River on Kauai, to the Menehunes, a mythical race of dwarfs, 
distinguished for cunning industry and mechanical and engineering skill and intelli- 
gence. Many of the very old ponds are still in practical use and look as though they 
would last for centuries. As the ponds were originally owned by the kings and 
chiefs, it is very probable that most of them were built by the forced labor of the 
common people. There is a tradition among the natives that Loko Wekolo (Wekolo 
pond), on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, was built about two hundred and fifty years ago, and 
that the natives formed a line from the shore to the mountain and passed the lava 
rock from hand to hand till it reached the shore where the building was going on 
without once touching the ground in transit. As the distance is considerably over 
a mile, this is significant of the density of the population at that time. 
The ponds are found principally in the bays indenting the shores of the islands, 
the common method of construction having been to build a wall of lava rock across 
the narrowest part of the entrance to a small bay or bight of land and use the 
inclosed space for the pond. Ponds were also built on the seashore itself, the wall 
in this case being run out from two points on the shore, some distance apart, in the 
shape of a half circle. Most of the Molokai fish ponds were built in this manner. 
A few were constructed somewhat interior, and these are filled by the fresh water 
streams from the mountains or by tidal water from the sea carried to them by means 
of ditches. Most of the interior ponds are on Oahu, near Honolulu. The Nomilo 
fish pond at Lawai, on Kauai, is formed from an old volcanic crater with an opening 
toward the sea across which a wall has been built, and as the opening is below the 
surface of the sea the tide plaj s in and out when the gates are opened. 
In the sea ponds the walls are about 5 feet in width and are built somewhat 
loosely, in order that the water may percolate freely. The interior ponds have dirt 
sides generally, although a few have rock walls covered with dirt, while others have 
rock walls backed with dirt. The sea ponds generally have sluice gates which can be 
raised or lowered, or else which open and close like a door. In the interior ponds 
there are usually two small bulkheads with a space about 8 feet square between 
them. Each of these has a small door which usually slides up or down. When the 
tide is coming in both doors are opened and the fish are allowed to go in freely. 
At the turn of the tide the doors are closed. When the owner wishes to remove any 
of the fish he generally opens the inner door when the tide is ebbing. The fish rush 
into the narrow space between the bulkheads, from which they are dipped out by 
