MISCELLANEA. 
487 
FISHING IN CHINA. . 
The multitudes of persons who live by the fisheries in 
China, afford evidence not only that the land is cultivated to 
the greatest possible extent, but that it is insufficient to 
supply the necessities of the overflowing population ; for 
agriculture is held in high honour in China, and the husband- 
man stands next in rank to the sage or literary man in the 
social hierarchy. It has been supposed that nearly a tenth of 
the population derive their means of support from fisheries. 
Hundreds and thousands of boats crowd the whole coast of 
China — sometimes acting in communities, sometimes in- 
dependent and isolated. There is no species of craft by 
which a fish can be inveigled which is not practised with 
success in China— every variety of net, from vast seines, 
embracing miles, to the smallest handfilet in the care of a 
child. Fishing by night and fishing by day, — fishing by 
moonlight, by torchlight, and in utter darkness, — fishing in 
boats of all sizes, — fishing by those who are stationary on 
the rock by the seaside, and by those who are absent for 
weeks on the wildest of seas, — fishing by cormorants, — 
fishing by divers, — fishing with lines, with baskets, — by every 
imaginable decoy and device. There is no river which is not 
staked to assist the fisherman in his craft. There is no lake, 
no pond, which is not crowded with fish. A piece of water 
is nearly as valuable as a field of fertile land. At daybreak 
every city is crowded with sellers of live fish, who carry their 
commodity in buckets of water, saving all they do not sell to 
be returned to the pond, or kept for another day’s service. 
And the lakes and ponds of China not only supply large 
provisions of fish — they produce considerable quantities of 
edible roots and seeds, which are largely consumed by the 
people. Among these the esculent arum, the water-chestnut 
( scirpus iuberosus) and the lotus (columbium) are the most 
remarkable . — Sir J. Bowring . 
OBITUARY. 
Died at Caistor, on the 2d May last, after a lingering 
illness, aged 76, Mr. W. Hargrave, M.R.C.V.S. He obtained 
his diploma about 1804. 
At Wakefield, on the 2d July, aged 57, Mr. J. Morville, 
M.R.C.V.S. He had been suffering from disease of the 
heart for the last six or seven years, and has left a widow in 
