382 
KAMAKICHI KISHINOUYE : 
littoral grounds after a heavy rain, and approach the coast in summer, after a 
long draught. In the Bay of Yenoura, at the foot of Mount Fuji, tunnies are 
sometimes kept alive, surrounded by a wall of strong netting near the shore. 
Pelagic scombroid fishes often crowd under drift wood or algae, or follow 
whales or vessels. Acanthocybium sdanderi is attracted to bundles of wood 
moored at the surface of the sea, purposely devised by fishermen. 
Fishes of the Cybiidae are voracious and audacious. They strive to get 
out of a pound-net, pushing their head through the meshes at the bottom at 
night, though in the day-time they are afraid to pass through meshes. 
Plecostean fishes are especially timid, as was observed by previous writers, 
and do not dare to pass through the meshes of a net, until they are confiued 
in a narrow space, though the meshes are wide, expanded, and large enough 
to be passed freely. Neither do they enter a dark cove, nor approach very 
near a rocky precipitous Avail. When some fish are entangled in a net, 
and are struggling to escaj)e, the remaining fish of the school are scared away. 
It is, moreover, told that they are terrified and disappear when they see blood. 
Thus the throwing out of bilge-water, contaminated with blood, is not per¬ 
mitted at the fishing ground, and with the same reason long lines of sharks 
are considered to be disadvantageous to bonito fishing, as sharks shed blood 
Avhen hooked. 
Generally the male fish come first, in the middle of the fishing season the 
number of both sexes is nearly equal, and at the end of the season the female 
fish predominate. 
The habits of the scombroid fishes are often influenced by tides. Mackerels 
often float towards the surface of the sea, shortly after the flood-tide. Some 
seerfishes are said to be very active in the ebb-tide, and Gymnosardci nuda is 
said to bite hooks Avell, when there is no tidal current. Some tunnies are said 
to resort to the shore with the flood-tide. 
Bonitos, except Euthynnus yaito, are said to be very clever in making a 
school of small fish very dense, by swimming round the school of the victims, 
and devouring stray or forelom individuals gradually. On the contrary, tunnies 
and seerfishes swim into a school of victims, and disperse them. The feeding 
of a fish seems not always the same throughout the year. The striped bonito 
is said to decline to take bait in certain seasons, generally in mid-summer. 
